


Wheel in the Sky

by lexicale



Series: Dawnbringer!verse [7]
Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: Attempted Rape, M/M, Minor Character Death, Sexual Harassment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-29
Updated: 2012-09-29
Packaged: 2017-11-15 06:24:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 25
Words: 130,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/524105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lexicale/pseuds/lexicale
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three years after the end of <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/524050">Let Not the Sun Go Down</a>, Jared and Jensen are beginning to plan their future. The revelation of a secret, however, and the fallout, force them to deal instead with the messy past, and all the things left behind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Jared is 22. Jensen is 38.

_The world moved dizzily through the heavens, tilting, turning, moving ever forward on its axis, and he could feel it._

_He could feel it: the glide, the shift, the motion of the earth underneath him. He could feel where the horizon ran off and sloped away, hiding from him all the treasures that should always have been his for the taking. He could feel the tides, distant but certain, shifting in and out and calling to him -- but never strong enough to take him, to touch him._

_But most of all, he could feel the sun._

_He could see the faint glow fading out and vanishing, going farther and farther away, running from him to fight another day. Always another day. One after the next, and he knew the truth. He understood it in ways his father never had, always full of blame and agony and a search for understanding in a sky empty and devoid of love._

_His father never understood, but_ he _knew. He knew that it was a fight. A battle._

_One that was fought at every dawn and truced at every dusk._

_But the time was coming. The wind whispered to him of a change, of something new. The wind whispered that something was coming, the world pulling back all its pretty little secrets to show something it had hidden from him. Something that only he could see._

_Something that had been promised to him, a long time ago._

_All he had to do was wait. It was always just a matter of waiting._

_And, if nothing else, he knew how to do that._

_When he opened his eyes, the moon broke the horizon, and began to rise up into the heavens._

\-----

Jared woke up with a snort, eyes dry and his blinking uneven and slow.

He swallowed thickly, the recirculated air of the plane's cabin doing a number on his sinuses, making everything dried out and sticky, like all the fluid in him turned into sludge.

"Sir?" one of the stewardesses asked, stopping beside their aisle with one of their little trolleys, and Jared was trying to figure out if it was the meal or just more drinks. "Can I get you anything?"

"Water?" he asked, shifting around so that he was no longer pressing the side of his shoulder uncomfortably into the seat cushion. He settled back against it, twisting his body to work out all the kinks. His shoulder was aching and numb at the same time, having twisted himself into some contortion in his quest for sleep, always a feat on an airplane for someone of his size. 

Not that he'd _been_ on an airplane for several years, since he was much smaller, and fit more easily into cramped spaces.

It was something he'd been willing to put up with, to be at his brother's wedding.

"How're you doing?" he asked his traveling companion, smacking his lips together as he woke up, stretching his hands out in front of him, fingers interlinked to make them crack.

Brutus didn't look half so relaxed.

"I will be better when we are _on the ground_ again," the beta replied, hands gripping the arm rests as he stared straight ahead.

"Oh, _c'mon."_ Jared shook his head. "We've been up here for like...what? Three hours? You need to chill out. We were fine on the flight out, right?"

"Just because we managed to survive one instance of complete insanity does not mean we shall be so lucky _again."_

"Brutus, for a great cat warrior, you're kind of a weenie."

"We are _in the air._ I was not meant to be _in the air._ Saul'hrao gave us _paws._ Paws for _running."_ He glanced over at Jared, giving him an emphatic look. _"On the ground."_

"Don't your gods live in the sky?" Jared shifted back in his seat. He pressed the button to make it go back further, even though he already knew he was as far back as it went. Not unexpectedly, the seat didn't budge. "The whole 'You came from the sky and to the sky you will return' and all that?"

"They're _your_ gods too, you know," Brutus replied, and Jared opened his mouth to point out that that wasn't really how religion worked, but the beta continued. "And I am to return to the sky _after_ I leave my mortal remains behind. _Not_ while still walking around in them. I was certainly never meant to be flying around the sky in a giant metal _tube._ I don't care what Jensen'hrao says, this isn't human engineering, it's some kind of dark sorcery."

"Well _now_ you're just being melodramatic." Jared rolled his eyes, leaning back in his seat again. He turned his head to the right, looking across the breadth of his shoulder and to the dimly lit window pocked in the wall of the fuselage. It was night out, the steady churn of the engines driving them ever eastward and back towards the coast.

Back towards home.

It had been three years since Jared had showed up on pride ground, tired and bedraggled with a cub dangling from his mouth. Three years since he'd tried to run from his heat, from Jensen. Two and a half since he'd given birth to his girls, and five since he'd disappeared from his childhood home in the night, shame dogging his steps.

He never would have guessed that turning run away would have worked out for him like it had, or that he would be flying away from Wyoming and call it 'going home.' 

The trip had been good, over all. It had been wonderful to go back, to see his old room(converted back into a study these days, his father's messy papers scattered all over, environmental bills and charity causes alongside articles on new studies being done in biology), to see the kitchen he and his siblings used to run around, and to chase his brother in the long grass out back, he and Daniel tussling and growling with little better to do. At least until Brandon drove up with his fiancé and a long list of things that had to get done before the wedding, hectic and harried and human fronts had to be put back on. Human smiles for human guests, and it was harder now than it had been, once.

And easier, too.

His youth had been so filled with confusion. The world had been a place unwilling to provide him answers, to give him any ease of comfort, and as loving as his friends and family had been, they hadn't understood him. Couldn't have. Growing up had been a trial that had led him to all the wrong conclusions -- there was only so long that he could insist that he was the lone sane man. Or boy, really.

And running away hadn't made it better. Not at first, at least. 

Two years of solitude had compounded every slight, every insult. Had moved every doubt and every worry into a firm certainty that there was something wrong with him. That he hadn't just been born different, but instead born _wrong._ Born in error, instead of merely in the purpose of his own form -- and for all he was a biologist's son, he couldn't quite see the place for him the spectrum of nature's intention. Impossible to view it through the lens of humanity that he'd grown up through and see it as anything except revolting.

But it was amazing what three years could do.

He smiled a little to himself, seeing the faint outline of his own expression on the plastic surface of the window. It had been undeniably strange to be back in his hometown and surrounded by so many humans. He hadn't thought it would be, on the flight out, excitedly babbling to Brutus's fear stricken face about all the things that they were going to do -- the food they were going to eat, the amazing old movie theatre they were going to visit, the hiking trails they were going to take. Maybe even swing by Yellowstone and pick up some of that tacky saber cat merchandise they still sold in the gift shop: postcards and figurines, T-Shirts with bad spray decals on them, a cat roaring in front of a lightning cloud or something equally ridiculous.

He'd been so consumed by those thoughts, by every little piece of nostalgic love and every little longing and thing that he'd missed since he'd left that he hadn't expected to get there and realize that it was all in his past. That it wasn't home anymore.

It had been lovely to be there. To see his mom, hair really greying now, and his dad, who he didn't see as often, still as wiry and fit as ever, even nearing sixty. To poke and prod at Daniel and to have that one late night conversation with the groom he'd managed to steal -- Brandon and Jared, each drinking a beer and reminiscing on everything that had come before, on the eve of one of them getting married. Becoming men in place of the boys they'd grown up together as.

It had been so worth it to be at his brother's wedding, standing at the front of the chapel, listening to the solemn words of the preacher turn into ones of joy as he announced the kiss, and Jared could only smile. Could only appreciate his brother's happiness. It had been so worth it to dance until he felt sick, not caring if he looked like an idiot at all -- pulling out all those old class clown tricks he'd developed in high school to hide his vulnerabilities; but now to use them with genuine abandon, no false ploy but just revelry in the moment. 

Sure, it had been harder to pretend away his nature now, so used to it. But it had been easier too: because he knew it was just temporary. A disguise not for his family but just for the people who wouldn't understand and then off again.

It had been worth every moment, and he'd loved it.

But it had also shown him that his childhood home wasn't the same as _home,_ and it wasn't in Wyoming anymore. And whatever bitterness he found in that realization he found evenly tempered by sweet -- with the knowledge that if he wasn't a grown man yet, he was well on his way.

A man with a mate, and a family, and a sense of the world that didn't make him want to run away and hide anymore.

He tapped one of his knuckles against his lips, feeling the edge of the smile there. After all this time, he was eager to go home -- and home lay to the east. In front of him, not behind. 

It had only taken three whole years. Three years with his pride, with his mate. Three years raising his children and discovering all the things he wanted for them and what that meant _to_ him, in light of his own doubts. 

Three years and he was twenty two now.

"You okay?" Brutus asked, and Jared glanced up curiously, turning to look at the guardian who'd been at his side the whole time.

"Hmm? Oh, yeah. Just...You know. First time back in a long time. Lot to think about." He offered up a quirk of his lips.

"If you want to talk," Brutus offered with a vague gesture of his hand, the blonde man looking considerably uncomfortable at the prospect and Jared did his best not to chuckle. Brutus was a great guy, and a friend who was loyal to a fault, and Jared loved the hell out of him, but the beta was not at all the touchy feely type. He didn't much go for heart-to-hearts, and that knowledge had afforded Jared _plenty_ of great opportunities for teasing over the years.

"No, really. It's not bad, I swear. A lot to think about, but...good things. Good thoughts." Nostalgia was good. Growing apart, growing up was good. And whatever sting he felt at letting go was only natural.

"Well...alright then." The beta nodded, as if satisfied with this, looking equal parts suspicious and relieved. Though both were quickly over ridden by that stern look he got whenever he was steeling himself for something -- in this case, an hour more of flight.

Jared leaned towards the curve of the cabin wall, elbow pressing down on the arm rest and resting his jaw in the palm of his hand. He looked out the window and saw the dark of the world below, all in shadow, only the map projected up on the screen at the front of the cabin to let him know that they were just about to start flying over Virginia, the plane dipping south again. The clouds moved slowly by beneath them, at hundreds of miles per hour, spotty and in small bunches, their fragile arms spread out over the sky.

Jared could just imagine what it was like down there, down in the mountains and out in the forests. A cool and moist night, the barely there beginnings of spring and the winter receding off into the shadows of the trees, life returning to a rolling carpet of hills and mountains that never truly lost their green, even in the depths of the cold white hush.

He could see, in his mind's eye, his mate and children, far below him and hundreds of miles away, tucked safe and secure in their warm den. He could see the mist settling low in the air of pride ground, unmarked and unmarred by even the furthest reach of civilization, touched only by the turning of the seasons. The forest was as ancient as the earth and always waiting, always still and full of secrets.

Jared's eyelids shuttered, and he could already imagine his home.

In the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, against the edge of the churning Nantahala...

A shadow blinked across the moon and he looked up into its silver light, heavy and full and casting its glow across the clouds. Its pock-marked face looked so strangely large up here, like Jared could reach out and touch its cold surface, somewhere just beyond the edge of the heavens.

Always watching.

He looked up at the moon, and he drew a measure of comfort.


	2. Chapter 2

Jensen was flipping through documentation on the new demarcations of state county lines when Alona swung in, her hand snatching the doorframe, and said: "They're here!"

It was sufficiently out of the blue that, even though he'd been waiting all afternoon for his mate to get back, he had no idea what she was talking about.

"What?" he asked, and the young fertile rolled her eyes.

 _"Jared,"_ she said with a roll of her eyes, like _'you idiot.'_ "The truck pulled back up to the garage." 

Jensen sat up a little straighter, state law forgotten, and shuffled the papers to the side.

"I'll be right out," he replied, and Alona pushed off of the doorframe, pausing to gather her messy blonde hair back away from her face before jogging back outside, clearly excited, leaving the alpha at his desk.

The week and a half without his mate hadn't been nearly as bad as Jensen had expected. In fact, it had just about flown by. Between looking after their kids by himself and managing the pride, Jensen had had barely a moment to himself to contemplate anything. He'd never admit it to anyone, but he'd been a little bit nervous at first, sending Jared away down the mountain and back to Wyoming -- back to the pride he'd belonged to before he'd come to Jensen.

A tiny pride of three, but a pride nonetheless.

And despite himself, Jensen had entertained ridiculous fantasies of Jared just not coming back, of Brutus returning home alone with nothing but a sad message of regret -- that Jared had forgotten just how much he loved being human. After all, Jared had never returned home before now. He'd only found Jensen's pride by chance, and it had been that or go back to living in solitude, and Jensen couldn't help but doubt.

It was ridiculous, and juvenile, and Jensen recognized that. Jared had never given any indication of being displeased with his place in the pride(well, that was a lie -- Jared freaked out at the smallest thing, sometimes) but that didn't seem to stop Jensen from acting a fool in his own head, and he'd thought that the week would crawl by.

Looking after four toddlers on his own fixed that, though, and he'd barely had enough time to himself to think, let alone worry.

Now though, sitting at his desk, that irrational fear came flooding back, whispering _maybe,_ and Jensen had to roll his eyes at himself.

He was behaving like a moonstruck young dominant, in love with his first fertile. 

He got up from his chair, trying to settle the mess of papers gathered at every corner(which he knew he should attend to at _some_ point) as he walked around the desk and to the door. Tristan and the girls were zonked out in the corner on a pile of pillows, and Jensen hated to wake them -- mostly because they'd been a complete pain in the ass to get to sleep. The idea of transforming them from quietly sleeping, peaceful bundles into the little hellions they were most days was unpleasant.

All the same, their mother was home, and Jensen knew just how much they'd missed Jared.

"Hey," he said, leaning down. Tristan was stretched out, his yellow coat looking washed out in comparison to the striking orange and gold of his sisters, and Jensen ran his hand over his son's fur before shifting to rub Nathalie's frill. "C'mon guys, wake up. I got a surprise for you."

They woke up groggy and slow, yawns all around and the licking of chops as they stretched their paws, Joey growling and curling up tighter, like she could ignore the world if she just squeezed her eyes shut tightly enough. He gave her an energetic rub and she squalled at him, lashing out with claws that he quickly avoided.

"Come on now... You don't wanna miss your mom getting home, do you?"

 _'Mom's home?'_ Deb asked, her ears going up eagerly.

 _'You're on my tail!'_ Tristan complained.

'I'm _just lying down._ Your _tail is in the way,'_ Nathalie responded, teeth bared.

 _'Where is he?'_ Joey asked, getting up long and lazy, stretching with every step as she left the bundle of pillows -- probably before she got caught up in one of Tristan and Nathalie's frequent tussles. 

"Alona just came and told me the car pulled up. We should -- stop it, you two -- We should go and meet him. I bet he's real eager to see you." Jensen grinned, like that would be enough to convince them.

He would have liked that to be the case. 

But wrangling four (mostly)three year olds was nothing like easy, and it took him another five minutes before he managed to get them out of the mainhouse. By that time, Jared, Misha and Brutus were walking out from the woods, bags in hand. Jensen's eyes flashed straight to his mate as he emerged, and Jensen smiled. Jared caught his gaze and returned it, just for a second, before his kids were on him, and Jared had to drop his bag and descend to one knee, taking them all in his arms as they babbled and squirmed.

"Hey, hey," Jared said through the overlapping voices all trying to tell him something at once, and Jensen smiled, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning his shoulder against a tree.

"Good trip?" he asked Brutus as his cousin walked past him. The beta gave him a measured look, then nodded dutifully.

"No problems, Alpha."

Jensen rolled his eyes, but accepted that -- at some point his cousin would loosen up. Jensen didn't know _when,_ but he figured it'd have to happen at some point. The beta continued walking, knowing that Jared was safe with Jensen, and Misha pausing only to clap the alpha on the shoulder before heading further into pride ground.

 _'And then Nathalie pushed me over the edge and I fell down!'_ Tristan's voice cut through, clearly telling the story of how he'd gotten the cut on his paw.

 _'Tattletale!'_ Nathalie responded, hissing.

_'It was your fault anyways!'_

_'No, it wasn't! You were being annoying!'_

'You're more annoying!'

'No, you are!'

"Children, children, please," Jared placated. "There's no need to fight. You're all _equally_ annoying."

Tristan and Nathalie stopped enough to pout at Jared, but Debra ignored them, rubbing up against Jared's shins again and again, doing little figure eights.

 _'I missed you, Mommy,'_ she said, always the sweetest of their little quartet, and the least likely to be getting into trouble. Jensen adored all of his children and would never try to change them, but in moments when the mainhouse was a mess and some antique piece of furniture left by their ancestors had claw marks in it, he couldn't help but wish the other three would take some lessons from Deb.

"I missed you too, sweetie," Jared replied, picking her up, scratching behind her ears as she purred.

 _'What about me?'_ Tristan demanded, followed quickly by his two other sisters, all seeking attention.

"You too," Jared placated. "And you, and you..." 

He pushed himself to stand, Deb still curled in one arm, picking up his bag with the other. 

"Now, Mom needs to go put his things away and lay down so that his back doesn't permanently fuse in to the relief of an airline seat. C'mon." He gestured with his head, making his way up towards the mainhouse, and Jensen swooped in to take his mate's bag, pulling the strap up over his own shoulder.

"Hey," Jared said warmly.

"What about _me?"_ Jensen asked with a bit of a smirk, imitating his children and knowing perfectly well he was being a brat.

"You too," Jared replied once more, against a chuckle, and leaned in. Their lips came together easy enough, familiar through three years with one another, and a week and a half the longest time apart.

It didn't seem so long at all now, though, with Jared right here.

\-----

The rest of the evening was spent managing the kids. They were unavoidably excited, and the nap only fueled their enthusiasm. Jared had done his best to mingle with the rest of the pride as they filtered in, still sleeping by the warmth of the winter fire, until the last of the cold abated. Between each conversation though, he had to listen to some eager story from one of the cubs, sometimes multiple times or from multiple angles if another one of them wanted to chime in with their _own_ version of events, certain their mother needed to be regaled with the retelling.

By the time they managed to get some time alone, it was well into the night.

They'd managed to hoist their still-not-sleeping children off with some of the fertile, but Jared was clearly exhausted from all his traveling and spending all evening greeting the rest of their pride hadn't helped. All the same, once Jensen had him all to himself, he had no intention of just going straight to sleep. 

Sure, it had only been a week and a half and Jensen had been _fine_ and the kids had been _fine,_ but now Jared was home, and it seemed like such a good idea to push his fertile back against the stone chimney wall of their den, heat pressing out into Jared's clothes, and Jensen fully intended to get rid of those next.

"Missed me?" Jared asked, too much humor in his voice.

"Not particularly," Jensen responded.

"Liar."

He captured that mouth again, tasting his mate's breath, hands pressed firmly to Jared's waist. His saber had grown in the last few years -- taller than Jensen now, though still not as broad. He was as willowy as most fertile, his length only adding to that. Still too big for Jensen to just lift up though, and that was regretful, as Jensen could just imagine those mile long legs wrapped around his waist. He moaned a little and twisted away from the wall, momentum too much and they stumbled, crashing down, and only Jensen's arm shooting out saved them from hitting the floor too hard.

It didn't stop him though -- a week and a half hadn't been bad at all, and he'd been fine; but still the taste of his mate sang to him, and as soon as he had it in his mouth he wanted more. He bit carefully at skin as it was exposed, as Jared fumblingly removed layers and tossed them aside, Jensen's hands broad and pressed to Jared's waist. 

There wasn't a lot of foreplay, not like this, as wound up as this. Jensen reared back only enough to pull his simple clothing off, discarded without thought so that he could come back, could run the flat of his tongue over Jared's hip bone, biting the jut of it and leaving a mark there. Jared yowled, a completely inhuman sound coming from his normally so human-composed mate, and god if that didn't make Jensen even harder.

He was glad when Jared rolled over onto all fours, didn't bother with all the fancy positions of human sex. Even if Jensen enjoyed them, now didn't feel like the time, and he wanted to place his teeth in his mate's nape. 

He paused only to feel for the dampness between Jared's legs, leaning in to scent and breath him in -- a scent individual to Jared, and unmistakable. Jensen's tongue pressed briefly between his mate's legs, tasting him, feeling Jared jerk forward and then back. His saber's back arched down, beautiful and cat like, even in this form, and Jensen was too eager to pause, to take his time. When he pulled himself up, mounted Jared properly and pushed carefully into him, his fertile's back changed its posture, arching up instead, pressing to Jensen's chest. It was hot, tight inside of Jared, and Jensen moaned, seeking more of that, more friction. 

Their pace was quick and frenzied, and by the time Jensen was gripping the meat of Jared's shoulder in his mouth, holding it tight and claiming him, the saber was screaming out mating calls -- something that Jared so rarely did, rarely enough that Jensen could count the instances on one hand. It was so _good,_ so _gorgeous_ to listen to, to have those powerful screams echoing in his ears, speaking to him in a language beyond the human tongue, or even the ailure tongue. Cat to cat.

Jensen had no care for who heard them, not like Jared did. Jared, who was concerned and embarrassed most days, worried about some kind of judgment or teasing for being with his mate. Jensen was _proud_ to let others know that he was bedding his fertile. _Proud_ to know that the other cats in the building knew very well what was happening, and that he could bring such pleasure to a saber. To _his_ saber.

The last fertile saber in the world, and he was _Jensen's._

Just as surely as Jensen was Jared's.

The alpha's eyes winced shut, feeling himself jerk and come, pressing his hips determinedly in and muscles tensing, holding himself still like he knew Jared liked, staying inside as he felt his fertile begin to oh so slowly clench, so slowly build and build and then _crest_ \--

Jensen's eyes almost rolled back at the sensation, Jared's muscles going so tight around him, moving in waves, the feeling almost too powerful, and Jensen couldn't hold, had to pull out. 

Then collapsed to the blankets below them, limbs sprawled over limbs and Jensen could feel the sweat slick between them. He opened his eyes -- just enough to look over at his mate, to see Jared's face, slight smile spread over his thin lips, shaggy hair a mess and eyes mostly closed.

Jensen chuckled and dragged Jared in, feeling a long arm sprawl over his waist in return.

"Glad you're home," he said, as Jared tucked his head underneath Jensen's chin. The alpha ducked down to press his lips into the thick mane of hair, smelling sweat and car exhaust and shampoo and a thousand other human scents mixed in. But underneath that, Jared, his Jared. 

He smiled a bit to himself, letting that last little knot, that last little stupid, irrational fear that Jared might not come home to him, unravel and tug free.

Jared was here, after all. Back in their den, and pressed against Jensen like it was too natural to even question.

\-----

"I was thinking..."

Jared hadn't been aware he'd fallen asleep. He was home, finally, after an interminably long day of travel, and he wasn't ashamed to say that, after being fucked stupid, he'd pretty much just straight passed out. Still, he hadn't been aware that he'd drifted off until Jensen's voice, low and musing, entered his ears, and Jared blinked and jerked a little, glancing around like he didn't know where he was. Which was ridiculous, because where _else_ would he be?

 _You just got back from flying halfway across the country, idiot,_ his brain helpfully reminded him.

"Huh?" he asked articulately, and realized that Jensen had been tracing lines in Jared's skin with his lips. The fertile glanced down the length of himself at his mate.

"...eh," Jensen replied with an all too casual shrug. "It's nothing."

"No, you said...You were thinking?" Jared pushed, and Jensen returned to pressing lazy kisses against him, exploring territory Jared knew he already had memorized. Jared lifted a hand, running over the back of Jensen's head, the short cropped hair prickly against his palms. He relaxed back against their bedding, shutting his eyes when Jensen's lips pressed tight to Jared's belly.

"I was thinking...about another litter."

 _That_ made Jared's eyes fly open.

 _"What?!"_ he exclaimed, jerking his head up to stare down his body at Jensen, who winced.

"Not right now! It doesn't have to be right now." Jensen whined, a low, pathetic sound in his throat, kissing over Jared's ribs in apology. "I meant...next year, maybe."

Jared groaned.

"Jensen...I feel like I only _just_ stopped nursing the first batch."

"They stopped nursing two years ago," Jensen reminded dryly.

"Yeah, well, it felt like longer."

"Besides, what's wrong with nursing?"

 _"You've_ never had to nurse anything," Jared said, giving him a dirty look. _"You_ get to stand in the back looking all proud cause you got me knocked up, while _I_ have three little piranhas attached to me."

Jensen gave him a piteous look.

"It's not _that_ bad... Is it?" he asked, like Jared was pissing all over his favorite memories. Jared shook his head, smiling fondly and reaching up to press his hand to his mate's face, thumb brushing against the stubble there.

"C'mon now, you know I love our kids."

"...but you don't want to have more," Jensen finished for him, but that wasn't it. Jared shook his head.

"I don't know _what_ I want, yet. I want--... I want to think about it, okay? You gotta remember, I'm still only twenty two. I know you're in a different place than I am. But I have to think about these things. I have to--... I have to figure out what I want."

"That's...fair," Jensen replied, voice measured but not disingenuous. "I really _didn't_ mean now, lovely."

"I know you didn't."

"I just meant...opening the conversation, you know? Just this. Just us talking."

"Just us talking...is nice." Jared let his head fall back against the blankets, looking up at the sloped ceiling of their little attic room, safe and small. "I've got a lot to think about."

"It's no rush," Jensen hastened to add, like he thought he was pressuring, and Jared smiled a little to himself.

"It's fine, Jense." There was silence, and he glanced up, seeing the alpha's expression still a bit tense with worry. "It's _fine._ Really. It's not like I _don't_ wanna have more kids with you. It's just that I haven't--... Brandon got married last week. And him and Daniel are graduating in a few months."

"Is that what you want?" Jensen nuzzled in closer, pressing lips to Jared's collar bone, tone carefully neutral. Jared knew his mate still feared that Jared would up and change his mind, run off without a word. It was hard, then, to talk about these things without triggering Jensen's fears. It was why Jared avoided the topic, even when he just needed to talk through something.

His brow furrowed as he considered his words.

"It's not that," he started. "It's not that I _want_ it. It's just that that's what I _expected_ and there's...there's a difference there. I know what I expected my life to be, but I never actually stopped to think about what I _wanted_ it to be. And now I'm seeing others do the things I thought I was going to do, the things I thought symbolized being an adult and it made me realize..." His eyes searched the wooden beams of their ceiling, tracing the line of the grain for hidden clues, something to give him direction. He was happy here, with his mate and his pride and his children, and he had no intention of leaving.

But just because he had kids didn't mean he couldn't do other things as well, and he needed to know if he wanted that. If 'happy' was enough for him.

Being comfortable in his own skin had eluded him for so long, that basic sense of self and sense of place in the world, that he'd never thought beyond obtaining it. Now that he was here, living a good life and content, he suddenly found himself asking 'what now?' And he didn't even know where to begin.

Twenty two had seemed so old, three years ago. Now it felt so woefully young and with so much ahead of it, and with no more magical answers than nineteen had provided him.

"Made you realize?" Jensen prompted.

"Made me realize...I still have some things to figure out." He turned his head, nuzzling into the top of his mate's scalp, lips quirked in a smile. "That's not a _bad_ thing, Jen."

"I know," Jensen replied, after a pause, and he lifted his head, pressing their mouths together, firm and lingering only briefly. "And you know I'm here, right? If you need anything." 

"Of course I know." He leaned in for another quick kiss. "Of _course_ I know that."

There was never any doubt.

They shifted, rolling, until Jensen was at Jared's back and protecting it, as if there were anything to threaten them here. Jared smiled to himself as his mate tugged up the blankets, putting his arm around Jared's middle, pulling him back firmly until they were lined up, slotted together like spoons in a drawer. Jared could feel the occasional warm breath across the back of his neck.

"I'm glad you're home," Jensen murmured, and Jared put his hand over his mate's, against his stomach.

"You know I have no intention of leaving you, right?" he said, just making sure.

"I guess I still worry, sometimes."

"Well, don't." Jared turned his head to look back over his shoulder, seeing the blurry outline of Jensen's face. "You've got me."

Jensen glanced over him, and Jared could see his green eyes moving, checking, as if he needed to inspect that. Jared sighed and pressed back, mouths meeting again, slower this time, deeper but not sexual, and Jared ignored the crick in his neck. It was wet and tender, nothing rushed or heated. It was a reminder.

"You've _got_ me," he repeated when they pulled back, needing Jensen to know that much at least. 

It wasn't their relationship that was in any doubt, only what Jared's own ambitions for his life were, and he needed Jensen to recognize that those were two different things. He wasn't the scared little kid he'd been three years ago, willing to do anything for acceptance. Jensen had given him something better than that. Made him something better than that. Some _one_ better than that.

Someone who knew now that he had so much more owed to him than just a sense of belonging.

But that 'more' never _replaced_ Jensen, or their kids.

"You understand?" he asked, unwilling to just let it go to placate Jensen. Once, he might have. Once, when he was too lost and alone and hurting, he might have just given in, just to know that someone wanted him. 

"...I understand," the alpha said after a pause, and his mouth slid into a slow smile, and Jared felt warmth in him, urging him to give another peck of the lips, appreciative that his lover accepted that Jared would never _just_ be ailure. 

That he was unavoidably human, too.

He settled down, untwisting his body to lay boneless against the sheets, his head resting on familiar musty pillows, and Jensen pulled him tightly back.

Jared stared out the wall opposite him in the darkness, eyelids already beginning to droop again, and he had a lot of things to think about. Many things to consider. But his joy to be home and here with his mate was not one of them.


	3. Chapter 3

As much as Jared had loved seeing his family he couldn't deny just how how good it was to relax back home.

For the first few days after he got back, he wasn't ashamed to admit he pretty much just laid around like a lump and watched his kids. They were just as woefully active as ever, but unlike human toddlers, they didn't have any thumbs -- which meant that they were thwarted by doors everytime.

 _'C'mooon,'_ Joey whined, pushing her paws against Jared's side. _'I wanna go outside!'_

She crawled up all over him, and Jared just smiled to himself as the rest of his kids chorused in.

There had been a cold snap while Jared was away, the mountains always taking their sweet time to shift seasons, fluctuating back and forth. It had been warm enough, before, to trigger the first heat of the year, and Jared had secluded himself in the Cove with the rest of the fertile. As much as he'd come to peace with his heat, and even enjoyed parts of it these days, he was glad to have gotten it over with before the flight out to Wyoming. He was much better at handling the whole thing, but just because he and Brandon had worked through all those issues didn't mean it wouldn't be _awkward._

Not to mention that Jared was much more comfortable in the Cove, curling up and sleeping with his fellow fertiles.

Spring was just around the corner though, and even with his laziness, the warming air of the mountains called to him, and he wasn't ashamed to admit that the pride had managed to infect him with their love of 'sunning.' Once the worst of the chill pulled back, Jared ended up out on Jensen's sunning rock, dozing as he watched Tristan and the girls horsing around, or running over to play with Julie and Misha's litter.

In May they celebrated Tristan's third birthday, Cosette there with them. It was always a bit of a bittersweet occasion for Jensen. He was getting better with each year, with each little step of distance between himself and the loss of his first litter. He always made sure to put on a smile for their son, kissing the top of his head and celebrating, and if Jensen sometimes got a softer look on his face, something a little sadder and farther away, Tristan never noticed.

And if Jared made love a little slower that night, if he pushed Jensen onto his back and rode him gently, their hands pressed together, the two of them didn't comment on it. It wasn't something that needed to be talked about, anymore. Like Jared's first heat, it was something that was in their past -- something they'd dealt with.

Both of those memories would be with them for the rest of their lives, and they would never _not_ hurt, but they'd worked through it. They'd gotten through the worst. Some things in life you couldn't forget, but that didn't mean that you couldn't leave it behind you.

His mother came to visit not long after that, telling him all about the graduation and Jared smiled with a happy sadness, pleased for his siblings but still feeling a small pinch of regret that he wasn't there with them. Apparently Brandon and Vanessa had put off their honeymoon until after school was over and had headed down to Mexico a couple of weeks ago. His mother was going through her normal empty nest woes and spent almost all of her time with her grandchildren, repeatedly telling Jared how he should have brought them with him to the wedding, and then immediately moving on to how they should plan for him to bring them out later in the year.

"Not until they learn how to shift, Mom," he said for just about the millionth time, having no intention of putting his children in animal carriers and having them kept in a cargo hold. 

It wasn't until after she went home, after kisses all around and her usual tears and her hankerchief, that Jared really began to dwell on it. That Jared actually stopped to notice that all of Julie and Misha's litter had gone through their first shifts, one after the other, and that most of the others in that littergroup had done the same.

By the time summer rolled around, the mountains muggy with it, Jared was beginning to worry.

"When are you gonna change, hmm?" Jared asked, picking Tristan up behind his elbows, holding the cub up in the air. It wasn't as easy as it once was, Tristan already up to at least thirty pounds, and Jared oofed and pulled his son in close, cradling him like a baby. Tristan started up purring right away, paws held floppy up above his chest.

"He'll get around to it," Jensen replied, coming up behind his mate. He put a hand against Jared's upper arm, kissing the fertile's shoulder.

"Do you think it was something I did?" Jared asked with a small frown, reaching with his free hand to play with Tristan's paw. "When I looked after him as a kitten... It wasn't like I knew what I was doing, back then. Do you think I messed up? Maybe stunted his growth...?"

 _"Jared,"_ Jensen scolded softly. "You did _fine._ There's nothing wrong with him. He'll shift when he's ready to, won't you, little one?" Jensen couldn't help but smile down at his son, who was blissfully ignoring his parents and their uninteresting conversations.

"It's just..." Jared persisted, watching Tristan's lazy blinking. "Almost all the other cubs in his littergroup have already gone through their first shift. I'm worried about him."

"You _always_ worry -- about all of them." Jensen seemed to give up on moving on, and instead came up behind Jared, arms coming around the younger cat's waist. Jared could feel his mate against his back, head resting on Jared's shoulder as they both looked down at Tristan. "You're always worrying about the kids, and I love that about you, but I promise...you've done nothing wrong. You're a _good mother,_ and I know that that's why you worry. But I've been here the whole time, and Tristan is fine. All our kids are fine. Tristan will shift when he'd ready to. You need to let nature take its course, lovely."

Jared considered this, looking down at the big cub in his arms. He moved his free hand back to scratch Tristan's belly, and his son purred louder, stretching his paws up above his head and shifting around in Jared's arms. 

It was hard to let it go. It was just a natural part of Jared's personality. The whole mess with Brandon five years ago had messed with his head, making it all too easy to blame himself for problems. Especially with things that had to do with his nature as a fertile. As much as he'd grown and moved on in the last three years, there was still somewhat of a schism there, and probably always would be. It was too much to ask that he change the fundamental understanding of the world he'd grown up with, and while he'd learned a lot about being a fertile, he'd never understand it like someone who was raised as one.

Like someone learning a second language as an adult versus someone who'd grown up bilingual.

But given that, he had to trust Jensen.

Jensen had lived his entire life as an ailure, and the last eleven years as an alpha. He knew how things were supposed to be, and how they _weren't_ supposed to be, and as much as Jensen liked to coddle him, Jared knew his mate wouldn't outright lie to him. If there was something wrong, Jensen would tell him, and Jared had to trust in that.

 _Did_ trust in that -- but that didn't magically calm his nerves.

He felt his mate kiss the side of his neck, and Jared leaned into it without a thought. Tristan was unusually calm, and Jared took advantage of that, cradling his son close -- in five minutes or so, he was sure the cub would be causing some disaster, but for the moment he was quiet and calm, and Jared appreciated the pause.

Just him, his mate, and their first born, standing in the warm summer air.

\-----

Summer meant a lot of things for the pride: the first and foremost being lying around in the laziest fashion possible.

The game was abundant and their storehouse was always full, so pride ground was usually covered in lounging bodies, both cat and human, clothed or not, soaking in the hot summer sun. Unfortunately, it also meant lots of children, of varying ages, having almost nothing to do, which inevitably ended in some form of disaster.

Which was exactly why taking them down the mountain had become a tradition years ago. When the betas went into town to trade and pick up supplies, the back of the truck was loaded with older kids, usually between the ages of eight and sixteen, giving the pride some peace and quiet for a few hours, though usually giving the babysitters a headache.

Which was why Jared didn't think anything of it when he saw Jeff having what seemed to be a very stern discussion with one of the younger kids. They'd gotten back from town a couple of hours ago, and Jared hadn't heard any stories of the kids getting up to no good(and the pride _loved_ to gossip; he'd learned that pretty early on), so he couldn't help but be a little curious.

"Hey," he greeted as he approached, seeing Jeff straight up, crossing his arms over his chest and looking thoroughly displeased. "What's up?"

Jeff glanced up at Jared, and if anything, his expression became even more grim. That made Jared's curiosity pique, but also gave him a sour, nervous feeling in his stomach.

"Jeff? What happened? Is everything alright?"

"Yes." The beta paused, glancing around, then reached down to put his hand on the child's shoulder. The kid in question couldn't have been more than nine, and he looked almost sickly green he was so pale.

"What's going on?" Jared pressed, needing to know now.

"We should go and talk in private. With the alpha."

And that was enough to get Jared concerned, chest tightening a little as he nodded, his brow knit. He trusted Jeff -- more than that, the older beta wasn't one to freak out easily. Jared had made more than a few stoner jokes about it, in fact. To see the warrior so set and serious sparked both Jared's curiosity and his anxiety.

Jeff guided the kid by hand(Ian or Elton or something -- one of Luther's kids; Jared could never remember everyone's cubs), the three of them peeling off from the others who were all watching with that schoolyard interest, whispers among them only making the tension in Jared's chest rachet up.

"Jeff--" he tried again, as the beta opened the door for him and the cub, but Jeff just shook his head, waiting until they were inside.

"You know where the alpha is?" Jeff asked, and Jared stepped out in front.

"Back in the study." He nodded to the back of the mainhouse, where the books were kept on old but steady bookshelves, nailed into the wall. The room contained little else besides those books and Jensen's desk, papers strewn about in a fashion that only Jensen knew how to interperate. The room was half under the stairs and Jared always had to duck his head to make it through the door.

The fact that Jeff shut said rickety old door behind them didn't bode well at all.

"Alpha," the beta greeted with a nod, Jensen looking up with a sheaf of papers in one hand, the satelitte phone -- a fairly recent addition to their limited technology arsenel -- in the other.

"Hey," he nodded briefly. "Can this wait? I was about to call--"

"No." Jeff shook his head. "You need to hear this."

Jensen frowned, knowing to not take Jeff's rare and infrequent warnings lightly. He put the papers down and set the phone on top of them like a paper weight, folding his fingers together.

Jeff gave the kid a quick shove forward.

"Tell the alpha what you told me, Ethan."

If anything, Ethan managed to go even paler, and Jared's fertile instincts made him want to go over and mother the cub, to give him some comfort that the dominants in the room wouldn't -- but Jeff wasn't a cold person, not even remotely. If he was being this stern, it was something serious.

Ethan licked his lips and looked down at the floor, the young dominant shuffling his feet in place, an absent tick of nervousness, and Jared couldn't blame him -- three adults, one of them the _alpha_ of the pride, watching him expectantly. 

"Um," he started. There was a pause, then there was no excuse to not fill in the heavy silence. "Beta Jeff had to do things, so Beta Leanna took all of us to the humans' park." He shrugged a little. "There were a bunch of human kids playing there, and Beta Leanna said we could join them while she was there."

Jensen's face ticked slightly, and Jared didn't need words to read it: _Please god don't let one of the kids have mauled a human child._

"Me'n Harrison ended up playing with some of the humans, and they wanted to race climbing a tree." He flushed a little then, pride through his queasy fear. "Harrison and I were way faster."

"Ethan," Jeff reminded.

"Uh, right... Anyways, later, when we got down, one of the kids was saying that we weren't anything special anyways. That he'd been to Costa Rica with his dad and they'd gotten to see one of the jaguar prides." Ethan's face screwed up in a scowl. "He said that cougars were plain and common, and that we were nothing compared to the other clans."

Jensen rubbed a hand over his face.

"Ethan, please tell me you didn't get into a fight because some human called you plain."

"No," Ethan wheedled. "Not exactly."

"He told them that a Skybreaker lived here," Jeff cut in, displeasure in his voice, and Jared felt his whole body go stiff, his eyes widening and god, he hadn't expected that at all. He'd never even _thought--_

Jensen's chair made a sound against the floor as it was shoved back, the alpha standing up too quickly and his hands coming down on the desk, staring at the cub in shock. 

"You _what?!"_

"I didn't mean to!" Ethan defended desperately, eyes huge and expression pathetic, and Jared knew enough about his own kids to know what that meant: _I didn't mean it once I found out I was going to get in trouble for it, but I sure as hell meant it when I did it._ "He was saying that there was nothing special about us and that all the other clans were more important than us, and I told him that was a lie and he'd never seen a saber before and _I_ have! I told him we're special because of Jared'hain, and that no other pride in the world has a saber but us, so he could shut up!"

Jared walked over to the cub, squatting down and putting his hands on Ethan's shoulders firmly, looking him dead in the eye, Jared's mouth already gone dry.

"Ethan, you have to tell me -- don't lie to me, okay? No matter what the truth is, I _need_ to know it. Did you mention anything, _anything,_ about my brothers or my parents? Did you even imply that there were other sabers out there?"

Ethan shook his head back and forth quickly.

"Are you _sure?"_ Jared pushed, needing to be certain. "Are you absolutely sure?"

"I'm sure, Jared'hain," Ethan replied quickly, obviously eager to reassure the one good thing he could tell them. "I didn't talk about them at all."

Jared's hands dropped from the boy's shoulders as he let out a long breath of relief -- taking, at least, comfort in that. That his parents weren't going to get arrested. That his brothers wouldn't have their human lives disrupted.

"I didn't know about all of this until we got back up the mountain, Alpha," Jeff cut in then. "I had already finished unloading the supplies and packing the salt into the storehouse before I even heard the kids talking. Ethan here was bragging about his exploits."

The cub flushed.

"Took me a few, but I finally got the story out of him," the beta finished.

"So, it's been what? Five hours?"

"Probably more like six or seven."

Jensen worried at his lip, thinking, and this was exactly why Ethan was here. Jared had learned that the pride didn't really do punishment, when it came to the cubs. When they got into trouble above and beyond the normal, they were almost always involved in the clean up. Jeff and Jensen weren't being cruel by making Ethan just stand there, without comfort. They were simply allowing the young dominant to see just how his actions effected the world -- the kind of responsibility he had. There'd be no spanking or chores or yelling at him. He would just have to witness all the repercussions.

Even so, Jared still had a hard time not going over an patting the poor kid on the shoulder. He didn't know if that was the human in him or the fertile, but he knew not to interfere. Ethan would remember this not as a punishment, not as anger at the adults or a need to rebel against rules. He would see the very real way what he'd done had impacted others.

Jensen, meanwhile, was rubbing at his chin with his thumb.

"I haven't heard anything... He _did_ just talk to other children," the alpha pointed out. "Did anything unusual happen while you were leaving town?"

"Nothing." Jeff shook his head. "We turned in what we had at the stores, picked up our supplies and did our trading. Got the usual amount of tourists taking photos as we did, but nothing out of the ordinary. They always manage to pick us out and you know how many of them gather in the summer."

Jensen nodded along the whole time, obviously thinking.

"It was just a child," Jared cut in, the two dominants looking over to him. "I mean, how old was he, Ethan?"

"He... He was ten, I think."

Jared nodded.

"...the others might have been a little older," the cub tacked on shamefacedly.

Jared groaned.

"There were _others?"_ he asked, but it was hardly a question. He could already easily see it in his mind: a group of kids gathered around on the playground, arguing about who had the better sports team, who had the cooler teacher, who had the best house. It was something so perfectly regular and human, and _of course_ there would have been plenty to overhear the argument.

"Maybe I should call the mayor," Jensen suggested, worry in his voice.

"No." Jared held up a hand, shaking his head. "That could only make it worse. I mean, as far as we know, the only thing that happened is that one kid made an unconfirmable claim to a bunch of other kids on a playground. We start getting adults involved, _that's_ when everything goes to hell."

"You know more of humans than we do," Jensen replied, his expression open and willing to take Jared's advice. As regna, Jared had learned that he had particular ability to bend the alpha's ear, but Jensen usually kept the big 'alpha business' confined to the office, and away from pride life. Jared took a deep breath.

"What matters is that he didn't mention my family. If he had--... I don't know what we'd do, but we'd have to do _something._ I don't want my brothers to be put in my position. They want to live as humans and I'll do anything to make sure that that happens for them." Jared hadn't had a choice. Sure, things had worked out well for him, but they could as easily have not. As a fertile, living like a human had never been an option for him. Maybe he would have chosen this life anyways -- he'd never know. 

But he never wanted to put his brothers in that position. He knew what it felt like to think you didn't have choices.

"Still." Jensen ran his thumb against his lower lip, teeth gripping it lightly for a second. Jeff stood silent and in the back, arms crossed over his chest and waiting for a decision. "I don't like the idea of that being out there. What if one of those kids tells their parents? Or some tourist? We already have enough problems with visiting hikers trying to sneak into the hunting ground in the summer."

"You really think someone's going to take it seriously when some kid says that some _other_ kid told them that one of the long extinct sabers happens to be living in their backyard?"

"I don't know. I don't know how humans would react to that." Jensen shook his head with a sigh, pushing himself off of the desk. "I know enough about human society to get by, but it's all incidental. I've never _lived_ in it -- not like you have."

Jared couldn't offer anything more than a shrug.

"Hard to predict, honestly. Humans... There's a lot of them. And it's not like the pride isn't diverse in personality, but... There's like a hundred and fifty of us and we live in each other's pockets. We're...easier to predict, I guess. There's over a thousand people living in Bryson and that's not counting the hundreds of tourists that are coming in and out each day. They're not going to act as a unit. It's anyone's guess what one particular person might do."

"...I should call the mayor," Jensen repeated his earlier suggestion, face becoming sterner, more serious at Jared's words, and Jared lifted his hands, shaking them back and forth in an attempt to placate. 

"I didn't mean that! Part of being unpredictable is that nothing may come of it. That's a possibility. If we get the mayor involved... It means that you're going to have to tell him. And once _he_ knows, _then_ we're off to the races. Some kid talking about a schoolyard argument? That can be dismissed. An elected official? Jensen, that's worse."

Jensen made a sound of frustration, rubbing his forehead.

"What do you suggest, then?"

"Riding it out." Jared shrugged. "If nothing comes of this, we don't want to end up _making_ something come of it. It might just pass over with nothing happening. If we keep our heads down and--"

"Wait," Jeff interrupted, and Jared glanced over at him. Except Jeff didn't say anything else. Instead, he just had one hand raised in a gesture for 'hold on' and was looking up. If Jared didn't know better, he'd almost think that the beta was talking on an earwig or something. The notion was pretty laughable, given that Jeff thought _calculators_ were overly complicated.

"Jeff," Jensen urged, after a few beats of silence. "What is it?"

"Can you hear that?" The beta turned his eyes from the ceiling. "That noise?"

Silence descended again as all in the room strained their ears, even Ethan standing on his tip toes, like that would somehow enhance his hearing. All Jared heard, though, was their quiet breathing and his own unsteady heartbeat.

"Jeff, I don't hear anyth--" he started, when he suddenly cut off, jolting when he heard something in the distance. It was low, more bass than treble and harder to descern. Jared more felt it in his bones than heard it.

"...the hell is _that?"_ Jensen asked, moving around the desk.

Whatever it was, though, it was getting closer, more audible, and Jared looked around the closed room, no windows. As it got louder, Jared could make out a steady _thud-thud-thud-thud,_ and it was familiar, something he couldn't quite put his finger on, but definitely something he'd heard before. It wasn't until he made out the steady tone of an engine beneath the beat that he realized exactly what was happening, and his blood ran cold.

"Oh _no,"_ he cursed, and ran around Jeff, out of the office. 

"Jared!" his mate called out after him, and Jared could hear the slap of feet against boards as the two dominants followed him. In the scant time it took for Jared to reach the front door, the noise was almost defeaning. Jared threw the door open and ran out onto the rock, looking up through the powerful wind that was pushing the trees to lean and sending Jared's hair flying.

He had to use his hand to shade his eyes from the sun, but there was no mistaking it at all -- a low flying helicopter, hovering directly over pride ground.

Jensen came to a halt beside him, Jeff lingering in the doorway, but both of them were looking up at the exact same sight. And while they stood there, none of them saying a word, the side door to the craft slid open, and a man tied to a harness leaned out of the side, holding a huge camera over his shoulder as he near dangled out of the helicopter, the lens pointing directly down at them.

Jared just gaped like a fish for a second, with no idea what to do.

"Well..." he started, and there was no other thing to say. _"Fuck."_


	4. Chapter 4

"I'm just not sure what you want me to _do,_ Jensen," Mayor Robinson stressed, shaking his head as he leaned forward in his chair. The man was a portly but well dressed, his office in much finer arrangement than Jensen's and always was. His secretary moved in and out of the space with papers or files or even passing a note to him every few minutes.

Jensen was in his customary seat on the other side of the desk, dressed in the best clothes he had, which weren't much in comparison to the mayor, but he was wearing shoes, as he always did when he came to town, feet shifting uncomfortably in their unusual confinement. 

"I need you to make sure that the no fly zone over our land is enforced, Tom. We can't have helicopters showing up at any time of the day or night."

"It's only a ban on low flying craft--"

"And they _were_ low flying craft. I'm not talking about jetliners thirty thousand feet up. I'm talking about three helicopters -- _three_ \-- showing up unannounced, one in the middle of the night, filming my people. They were barely fifty feet off the ground, Tom. They're violating federal airspace."

The mayor sighed, leaning back heavily in his chair, the back creaking with age as it came to rest. He folded his hands over his stomach, thin lips pursed in thought.

"I've already slapped WNIX with the fee. We can only hope that stops them. And I can't do anything about the footage -- you lobbied to allow outside footage of your land yourself, five years ago. Taking their helicopter in was illegal and I can restrict that, but there's no law forbidding them from distributing what they filmed."

Jensen let out a breath, leaning forward to rest his chin on his hands, elbows leaned against his knees. The pride worked closely with the humans of this town, and Bryson depended on the tourists to survive. It was a symbiotic relationship that Jensen had done everything he could to foster since he'd become alpha eleven years ago. Enough that he'd pushed to allow tourists taking pictures of the pride, so long as they didn't trespass on ailure land. They still had humans wandering on to it, several times a year, but rarely was there an incident and the ability to use the generators with the gas they got from Bryson had been well worth the trouble. Jensen didn't even want to tally up the lives the extra heat had saved in the winter, or the times he'd been able to sew shut an injury from a hunt under the light provided by their scantly used electricity. 

But they'd never had a _news story_ about them before, and the local news station might have been small, but that didn't mean they didn't stand to profit handsomely from the footage they'd caught.

"And the other two helicopters?" he asked, finally.

"One was from a news station in Waynesville, which I can't do much about, and the other was piloted by Eugene -- owns his own craft and rents it out to tourists for flying over the mountains. I've already had words with him. He's not happy, but he won't be taking anyone else out over your land -- not if he wants to keep his license."

Jensen rubbed under his nose, letting out a long, stressed breath.

"I don't understand... It's federal law, isn't it? Even if you're not the mayor of Waynesville, doesn't the federal government have jurisdiction?" Jensen had read and studied the human governing systems(all so wide and varied, different in every country) but he'd made sure to research their home country specifically. He'd thought he'd understood.

"Of course," the mayor nodded along. "And if you tell me to, I can call up the FAA and lodge a complaint. But you've always implied that you're uncomfortable with poking that bee's nest. Remember eight years back? That winter with the ice storm? I told you that the government would send aid, but you refused. You'd said that there would be friction for you if I did anything."

Jensen winced and nodded, stuck between a rock and a hard place and the mayor was right: Jensen didn't want to tap into federal business. He was an alpha of a small, young, unnamed pride, with little history and even less clout amongst his people, and while violence towards humans was mostly frowned upon, so was interaction. Jensen had never wanted to bring the spotlight down on his pride, to rock the boat and make other, more powerful prides take notice of them, but now he wanted it even less. The prides had traditions -- had their ways of living that went back hundreds or even thousands of years, and Jensen was in no position to challenge that.

"The best I can do, then, is threats." The mayor shrugged helplessly, and Jensen knew he'd put the man in a tough spot. Jensen was telling him to fix the situation while at the same time shooting down the best possible option. "WNIX has agreed not to fly out there anymore, but I think a part of that is that they got the footage they wanted. And like I said, we have a handle on Eugene. But anything outside of this town..." He shook his head. "I'm afraid my influence goes only so far, Jensen. And with the footage out there... You don't have television, but I've seen it on the national news."

Jensen groaned and rubbed his face.

"But it's not substantiated, is it? I mean, they can't know for _certain,_ with what they have..."

"They don't need to be certain." The mayor offered him a wan smile. "The story is in the possibility."

And if that wasn't ever the truth.

\-----

Jensen emerged from the town hall into the high noon day sun, glowing bright and wicked against his skin. He raised a hand to shield his eyes, shadows glancing across his face. Bryson was lit up and busy, people moving around through the square and down the well paved streets, past the train station. Today was a 'weekend,' Jensen had heard, which apparently meant that human were more prevalent. He'd never quite understood that one, but he accepted it as another aspect of human culture over which he only had a loose grasp.

It had been a week since the first helicopter and Jensen had made a call down to the mayor immediately afterwards. He'd hoped that would be it. A few days later, though, there had been two more, in quick succession, and it had become clear that a phone call wasn't going to suffice. Thus far, his pride remained safe, not overly disturbed in their daily lives, but Jensen was tense. Their relationship with the humans was important to him, important to all of them.

Unfortunately, that wasn't the state of affairs world wide and while there was no greater ailure government or power, and each pride was given to govern themselves as they saw fit, it didn't change the fact that Jensen had a responsibility towards his people as a whole. As an alpha, he was never allowed to forget that. 

If he overstepped his bounds, or made a mistake, it could easily reflect back on those not responsible, and just like ailure tended to believe that the actions of one human represented the beliefs of all humans, humans tended to believe the actions of one ailure represented the beliefs of all ailure. It was why so many ailure believed the humans to be their enemies in the wake of the Yellowstone Incident, even though the ones responsible represented such a fractionally small percentage of humans.

And why so many humans distrusted ailure, after any violent altercation around the world.

There hadn't been an all out war between their people in centuries, but that didn't mean that things could sour very quickly with very little action taken. In the past, the ailure had had an undeniable advantage, and even now, centuries later, the humans remembered that -- remembered the days when all they had were spears and shields against the tooth and the claw and the sheer murderous speed of the great cats. It was why the humans had always been so eager to appease their native prides. To keep the peace.

Jensen didn't think they realized that they had the advantage now. That it wouldn't take much more than a plane overhead and napalm dropped into the ailure's woods and the fight would be over before it started.

It was something his mother had always been certain to stress in her teachings to him.

 _'The humans don't have claws, or teeth,'_ she would say. _'They cannot run fast, or jump far, and our people once mocked them for being weak, for not having our grace and prowess. But we were too proud, too full of hubris. We leaned on our natural talents like a crutch while the humans had to do more, work harder for their success. While we laughed our way through the summer months, they toiled and built and worked, and from that work they made greater dens to shelter them, greater care to give their sick and their injured. While we hunted prey one at a time and jeered their silly weapons, they gathered herds together and raised them for themselves, and made even more food with their machines. They had no gifts from the gods, only their own two hands, and with them they fought to tame the earth. And today, they rule it as surely as we once did, when we were young and stupid and too easily impressed with ourselves. The humans are not to be mocked, or derided, or underestimated. They can be a powerful ally, or a deadly enemy. We were the ones who laughed and mocked, and once, betrayed. It is_ we _who must come with heads bowed, not they.'_

Every other alpha Jensen had ever met disagreed with that -- saw themselves as adversarial to the humans. It wasn't a philosophy he spoke of much, even to his own pride, but no matter how much the ailure wanted to deny it, it wasn't only the humans that had black marks against them in the past. Jensen's mother had been right. The ailure had once used their superior strength as hunters against the humans and even centuries later, that wasn't something easy to brush under the rug.

It made the relationship between the two species tense and strained, both sides seeing evil in the other and neither willing to cop to their crimes.

Over the last eleven years, Jensen had managed to make a comfortable situation for them in their small corner of the world. He'd made a mutually beneficial relationship between his pride and the human community of Bryson, and a comfort level that allowed his people to travel into town without any undue molestation. The peace here went beyond the uneasy truce of the rest of the world and Jensen never wanted to risk that.

But it wasn't just them anymore.

Jensen felt a bit selfish, given that their saber was also his _mate,_ but it was still the case that they'd been given one of the last of the holy cats, given to protect and care for. He knew the rest of his pride would want to see Jared safe.

It was an impossible set of needs to juggle -- his pride, his mate, his children, and the ailure community at large, and Jensen not having the authority to do much beyond what he'd already done. 

A few sudden flashes caught his eye, and he saw some tourists snapping their photos. He drew in a long breath, looking up through the summer heat into the endless blue sky.

It was going to be a hard season.

\-----

It was hard to gauge just how far the whole thing had gotten.

Besides their satellite phone, the pride didn't have any way to communicate with the outside world. The mayor had told Jensen that the footage had been on the national news, but it was safe to say that if Jensen's pride wasn't watching it, it was unlikely that others were either.

Still, the news was big enough that Jensen still expected some repercussions from surrounding prides, if for nothing else than that they didn't like seeing the topic of their people appear on human tongues, didn't like any added scrutiny or interaction. And when that repercussion came, Jensen expected to do a lot of bowing and scraping -- alpha though he may be, his pride was of relatively low standing, and knowledge of his name didn't extend much further that the prides of the eastern seaboard.

He didn't expect, a few days after returning from Bryson, to be greeting two cougars from the west: members of prides far older and more powerful than his own.

It was surprise enough to have a strange car pulling up along their road -- a surprise that had a beta running to fetch him, telling him that an SUV had pulled in near the garage. Jensen paused only to shift his form, putting on clothing at the mainhouse. After all, there was no reason to think it would be anything besides humans, as odd as the occurrence was.

And he was partially right.

The driver was human -- the mayor's driver, to be specific. Jensen had met the man a few times over the years and seen him often enough. He was a stoic sort of person and nodded stiffly to Jensen, which the alpha returned, but noted the slightly strained expression on the human's face.

It wasn't that surprising. They'd never allowed humans to come up here before, and his presence was of dubious legality if Jensen called him on it.

And as welcoming as Jensen wanted to be, he'd have to send him straight back down the mountain. His pride had changed since Jedediah'hrao's rule, and they'd certainly accepted that their relationship with Bryson was good for them, but that didn't mean they were comfortable with humans on pride ground, _especially_ after last week's incidents.

"I'm sorry," Jensen said as he jogged up. "But you're going to have to head back--"

He stopped when the back door opened, a man a little younger than Jensen pushing out before turning around to offer his hand to an older man, in his seventies at least. Both of them were ailure. Jensen could smell it, clear as day. And he had no idea what to say.

The younger one, a dominant, had shock black hair and smooth brown skin with eyes as clear as the sky. He was wearing simple, unmarked clothing, much the same as Jensen, while the older man, a fertile with greying hair but the same pigment, was wearing something far more ornate, and of an origin that Jensen couldn't identify. The shirt was obscured under a wrap made of rabbit's fur(which Jensen couldn't imagine felt good in this heat) and he wore an ancient looking shifting necklace, the emblem being that of the night sky: the blind moon and a set of three stars.

That...looked familiar.

Then Jensen's eyes widened, memory coming back to him snap fast. It was the symbol of the Khasa'kala: the oldest cougar pride and the only one to have retained a name in the ailure tongue. 

Jensen's hand snapped to the side of the SUV, grabbing the open window and looking in at the driver.

"Thank you very much for your assistance--" he searched his mind quickly for a name, "--Benjamin. Our pride is grateful for having delivered our honored guests."

He hoped it would pass enough for a dismissal, not wanting to be rude, but he needn't have worried. The human responded with similar brisk niceties, before putting the car into reverse and carefully driving back far enough to turn around. Jensen immediately turned his attention to the two visitors.

"Welcome to our lands. We had not been expecting--" He cut off and quickly bowed at the waist. "What brings us this honor?"

"I think you know quite well," the fertile said, not meanly but instead with a hint of humor. His cracked face shifted to allow a wry smile. "Tell us -- is it true?"

Jensen hesitated as he straightened, his whole modus operandi for the last three years having been to keep Jared's existence _out_ of public knowledge, but he couldn't just _lie_ to his fellow ailure, and certainly not one as prominent this. It wasn't going to stay quiet any longer and lying was just going to dig Jensen deeper into an already cavernous hole.

"...yes," he replied simply, having no more words or excuses.

"Then you must take us to him," the fertile said, pulling a wooden cane out from under his wrap, images of the cat gods carved into its surface, pressing the base to the ground and leaning on the end.

The younger dominant stepped away and nodded to Jensen.

"Thank you for accepting us onto your land, alpha," he said by way of greeting, and Jensen just nodded, his mouth going a little dry. He led them through the woods and back towards the mainhouse, the path covered but well worn. Jensen wished he knew where this was going, but he knew better than to ask. The younger dominant hadn't yet introduced himself, but from his clothing, Jensen wouldn't guess that he was from the Khasa'kala -- which meant that _two_ western cougar prides had sent representatives. The worst part was, he wasn't going to have _any_ time to prep Jared.

He found his mate out front of the mainhouse, their kids playing around him and Debra dozing quietly on the fertile's thigh. Jared was in his human form -- a more common occurrence for him than it was other ailure -- dressed in his jeans and plain white t-shirt, hair sticking to the back of his neck with sweat.

"Jared," he called, somewhat stiffly, but if Jared noticed he didn't make any show of it, not until he turned around to smile up at Jensen before it stilled and faded, glancing behind the alpha to the two new ailure.

"Hey," he said, amiably enough. Jensen held out a hand, an offer of help but also a signal to stand, and Jared took it, settling Debra carefully down on the ground and letting Jensen pull him to his feet.

The younger dominant stepped forward first, a smile on his lips and his eyes wide.

"My name is Ahote. I am a beta and captain in training to the Tohopka pride of Arizona. I have traveled all these miles, across human tracks to meet you. They say...they say that you are a child of Yrsa..." He let the sentence drift off, a little bit of wonder in his eyes.

Jared paused, eyes flicking to Jensen, waiting for Jensen to nod to him before looking back at the beta. Jared dipped his head once.

"I am. I mean...I'm a saber."

Ahote took a breath of air, chest swelling, and Jensen knew the feeling. He remembered it clearly -- himself, three years ago, kneeling next to Jared and realizing what he had in his hands. The completely impossible creature that had wandered into his life. 

He still saw that creature, that half-god being, but he also saw Jared. His mate may have been one of the cats who ran the length of the sky, but he was also Jensen's companion and confidante. He was also the fertile who'd given birth to and mothered Jensen's children, and he was also the insecure, slightly clumsy, overly friendly young man that Jensen had gotten to know so well over the past few years together.

But no. He hadn't forgotten. 

What it meant to be before Jared and to know you were standing in the light of one of Saul'hrao's blessed children.

The old fertile came forward then, cane tapping against the stone and Jared's eyes moved over to him in time to see the man pick his cane up and stiffly shift his legs, lowering himself down to his knees and Jared made an aborted move forward, hands out to stop him. The older fertile didn't stop though, until he was kneeling fully, gnarled hands resting on his thighs and he bend his head down -- back still straight and shoulders strong but chin tipped down reverently.

"Dawnbringer, Skybreaker, child of Yrsa," he said, worn voice steady despite its crackle. He spoke with such unwavering faith. "Keepers of the Sky, the Blessed Children, Hyl'maithen..." The old main raised his head, eyes knowing and looking into Jared. "You have gone by a thousand names, been called a thousand honors and titles, and through a thousand years you have remained unchanged. But there is no name you could go by that I would not know you. No place you could be or any face you could hide behind that I would not see you for what you truly are."

His head dipped again, shifted slightly to the side.

"You are the last."

Jared stood there, struck speechless and mouth slightly open, and Jensen wished he could reach over and tap it shut. Even though he was alpha here, though, he did nothing. He stood to the side, watching.

"My name is Eactu, wisecat of the Khasa'kala pride. Years ago, my people welcomed yours here, when your pride came to our shores. We reveled in the knowledge that the holy cats would be living so near us -- and we wept for years at the news of your demise. I remember crying to the sky that the gods may have mercy. That they wouldn't have taken you all. But after forty five years...even I had given up hope. I had thought that I would never again see with my own eyes a Skyrunner."

"I'm--...I--" Jared swallowed hard. "I don't know what to _say."_

Eactu didn't seem put off, just raised his head once more -- this time with two clear tracks of tears cutting beautifully down his weathered face.

"You needn't say a word, old friend. That you are here at all is blessing enough."

Jared lifted a hand to his shifting necklace, grasping it in his fingers, eyes wide and stunned. At his feet, their children were still now, looking over at the strangers with some trepidation, and, in Tristan's case, some unfortunate curiosity. Some of the other pride members had stopped to see what was going on, standing just below them on the slope, and Jensen flicked his hand quickly to summon one of the beta.

"Take the children to Julia and Misha's, and get me Misha _now,"_ he hissed under his breath, and the beta moved forward quickly, grabbing a cub up under each arm. One of the other ailure helped, the two of them being as subtle as they could as they carried the children off.

"The Blue Ridge Pride is honored to have you both here," Jensen said, as his children were taken away, and he tried to get some of the attention off of Jared. "Never have we been graced with members of such respected prides."

Ahote looked over at him as he spoke, dipping his head in brief but formal greeting.

"Thank you for having us both. Our prides sent us together to come and confirm if the rumor was true. I'll be honest, I--...did not expect it to turn out to be." He glanced over at Jared. "But if Eactu can see him...then there is no doubt. Sabers are in the world once more. It's hard to comprehend. All my life, they were nothing but myth."

Jensen nodded along, feeling much the same way. The Yellowstone Incident had happened seven years before his birth and he'd always believed that he would forever live in a world devoid of sabers. That the world he would give his children would be one where the great Dawnbringers would only be stories, just as they had been to him.

Except now his children _were_ Dawnbringers and the thought always stunned him.

"Tell me," Ahote continued. "Have others come?"

"Others?" Jensen asked, then shook his head. "No. Not other ailure, if that's what you mean."

"I had heard from other cougar prides that they would be sending delegates. We were even told rumors that the jaguars were moving." He looked at Jensen seriously. "This is new, Honored Alpha. This is something that will change our world. I believe many more than just us two will come to you now, to see your saber."

"Our regna," Jensen corrected politely, fond smile on his lips despite the somewhat distressing news.

 _"Regna,"_ Ahote replied, apparently just as unable to hold back from smiling. The younger dominant turned to look over at Jared, and Jensen took a deep breath.

Others were coming.

Not just cougars but also the jaguars, and perhaps even more. He tried to imagine if he'd heard of a saber in another pride, if Jared had ended up there instead of here -- if Jensen would just be a delegate come to lay a gift at Jared's feet. If the two of them had met so distantly and never become mates. Yet here he was, with the only saber fertile in the world, and all the eyes of all ailure looking at them for the first time.

Their little pride thrust suddenly out into the public, and there was no taking it back.

The next few weeks were going to be busy.


	5. Chapter 5

Jared had always been thoroughly convinced that the world was out to get him.

He'd had clues from early on.

The first was when both of his brothers learned to tie their shoes before him. He didn't know _why_ the laces were so damned confounding, but every day before school he was left sitting on his chair at the breakfast table, his mother's quick hands making short work of his sneakers. Daniel would mock him from the doorway and Brandon would just stand there, tall and steady and so in control of everything in a way that Jared never was. 

The second clue had been in the third grade, when he'd gotten beat up because he spent all of recess and play time with girls instead of boys. They were just _nicer,_ though, and they didn't mind if Jared didn't want to go and tackle each other in the yard, or play basketball with at the court with the shortened hoop. Sure, Jared didn't much care for dolls or Barbies or whatever, but he learned that not all girls liked them either. Sandra and Holly liked to read, just like him, and that suited Jared just fine. It had suited everyone else fine too, in kindergarten and the next two years. But something changed in third grade, something strange that Jared could never quite grasp, that meant it was bad for him to be the only guy in a group of girls.

When he came home with bruises splotching his side and his cheek scuffed up, Daniel and Brandon took him out back to learn to fight. He just ended up with his _other_ cheek scuffed up and tears and snot running down his face.

Jared didn't know about God or luck or karma yet, but he thought that it all seemed very unfair.

He _did_ know about God when he was in seventh grade, however, and got mocked because he _didn't_ hang out with girls. That was pretty much when he was sure that if there was a god, he definitely had it out for Jared Padalecki.

Going into heat and humping his brother had sealed it.

Of course, things had gotten better since then. Sure, there'd been that whole 'two years of complete solitude' thing, where he'd almost turned into a crazy mountain hobo, but he'd found a pride, and a mate, and he wasn't nearly so confused and hurt by the world anymore. Not to mention his kids, each one of whom he adored(and ~~sometimes wanted to strangle~~ occasionally found somewhat frustrating ).

Things had gotten so much better that he'd almost forgotten that fate liked to kick him in the balls.

Which was why, obviously, it had felt the need to remind him.

Two weeks since Ahote and Eactu had arrived and three since the first helicopter had broken the peace of their mountain life, Jared was sitting on what he scathingly called his 'throne.' In reality, it was just one of the pride's wood and wicker chairs and by no means grand. It had been set up, however, at the end of the large room of the mainhouse as a place for Jared to sit when receiving their newer visitors, and two weeks out, the tide didn't seem to be stemming. They'd received representatives from twenty eight cougar prides and nine jaguar prides, several of whom were alphas in their own right -- and if not alphas, regnas or captains sent in the alpha's stead.

And Jared may have held the position of regna(just because he was boinking the boss, as he frequently pointed out, whenever Misha or Jensen wanted him to act in any more official capacity), but that didn't mean he had a shit's clue what he was doing.

At least most of the cougar's spoke English and were fairly acquainted with modern Western customs and didn't mind if Jared made the occasional joke or slip in his nervousness. The jaguars were somewhat harder to deal with, coming from all along Central America and carrying with them amazing and diverse customs that...Jared knew nothing about.

He was going to end up accidentally insulting someone's dead grandma or something and start a war, he was sure.

It was the only way he could see this ending.

The one thing that gave him any comfort was that if _he_ was having a hard time, at least his mate was having just as difficult a one.

Jared might have been the one on display, but Jensen was the one doing the display _ing,_ and was the alpha receiving guests on to his land. Jared had never given much thought to ailure politics(he'd grown up thinking that wild ailure were vicious animals and little more -- he'd never even considered that they had _politics)_ but he was getting a first class education now. Jensen was even busier than when it was right before winter's fall. He was running around and trying to make everyone happy, trying to make sure that everyone had somewhere to stay.

Their provincial little pride just didn't have the space to accommodate so many visitors.

Especially not visitors that were apparently held in such high regard.

Not only had they come from miles or even whole countries away, many of them were from older and greatly respected prides -- not that Jared knew anything about that, beyond what Misha managed to murmur to him before he was introduced. Most of them seemed to frown on the Blue Ridge Pride's relationship with humans(or 'dependence,' as Jared had multiple times heard it referred to), and preferred to sleep outside anyways, eschewing human habitation. The whole thing gave Jensen fits, though Jared didn't fully understand why. It was one of those ailure things that he could understand only peripherally, in the same way that Jensen could grasp the concepts of human culture, but not the personal ramifications.

Jared was used to seeing his mate as the alpha -- as the head of their pride and the one in power. It was strange and new to see Jensen in this more subservient role, doing his level best to try and please everyone. Jensen, it turned out, was a big fish in a small pond and that showed when Great Whites started showing up.

The only meager blessing in the whole mess was that Jared had managed to call his family right after the helicopters showed up to tell them to lay low for awhile and that Jared wouldn't be contacting them again until things died down. Thankfully, thus far, no connection had been made to them and Jared had kept his last name out of circulation.

Jared could be grateful for small mercies.

Unfortunately there was no mercy to be had when Joey started kneading in her sleep, claws sinking through Jared's jeans and poking little holes in his thigh.

"Joline," he muttered to his daughter, currently passed out on his lap. _"Claws."_

She'd had taken a spill a few days earlier -- doing something she should not have been doing, as usual -- and broken one of the small bones in her front left paw. Jensen had carefully splinted it and wrapped the paw, and she had been ordered to stay out of play for at least the next week. This, of course, meant mom-time, and Jared had been taking his conversations with the visitors with a lapful of pitiful kitten.

He sighed and lowered a hand to scratch behind her ear.

"Heal up, you little troublemaker..." he murmured, watching as she shifted and rolled, baring her tummy and Jared smiled a little to himself. He hadn't gotten to see much of his kids over the last couple of weeks, especially the last few days, so very caught up in all the comings and goings, and it seemed like _everyone_ wanted his attention. Tristan and the girls were used to getting the lion's share, most of the time, and it had been rough enough on them when he'd been gone for his brother's wedding, months earlier. These days, by the time the sun set and Jared had a moment's peace, he was ready to collapse into bed.

It wasn't like a bunch of three year olds had the vocabulary to describe missing someone, but he knew by the way that they'd been acting out that they were displeased with the state of affairs.

He couldn't argue with that.

"Jared'hain," Misha caught his attention, standing to the side of Jared's chair, and the saber looked up at him.

"Hey," he greeted. "What's up?"

"I need to take Joline. That delegation we'd heard about--"

"The one from India?" Jared asked, arching an eyebrow. They'd heard the rumor this morning but no one had taken it too seriously. After all, the furthest traveled visitors they'd received were from Colombia. India seemed like such a stretch to Jared. Who would come so far, travel an _ocean,_ just to see him?

He simply couldn't visualize himself being that important -- except the way that Misha was looking at him, right now, brow set and eyes unblinking, made Jared swallow.

"...shit," he mumbled and looked down at his daughter, trying to get his hands under her body and lift her up. She was still mostly asleep and trilled in displeasure. "C'mon, Joey, you gotta go with Uncle Misha now, okay?"

The captain was just taking the sleepy kitten into his arms when the door to the mainhouse opened, Brutus holding it wide. The blonde sent a quick look Jared's way and there were no words, but Jared nodded anyways. He'd had Brutus as a bodyguard for three years now -- he knew the 'you doing okay?' look.

Jared pushed himself to sit up straighter, feeling that now familiar anxiety -- the reputation of his pride on his shoulders, and a slightly paranoid fear of losing it. The issue of whether or not the 'last sacred saber' should stay with some unknown cougar pride or not had been raised obliquely. No one had said that he should leave straight to his face or anything, but the offer to live elsewhere had been put before him several times now, and a few times in a slightly insulting manner. He kept his cool most of the time, mostly because Misha or Brutus gave him the big eyes, and Jared managed to tamp down his very human instinct to throw a snit fit.

It made him worry though. Of course no one had even implied that he wouldn't have a choice in the matter, but it was clear that his pride was greatly eclipsed, in power yes, but also in pure numbers. He had to remind himself that he was thinking like a human would. He'd never met a single ailure who would force a fertile to do anything, let alone take one away from his home and family. He'd slowly fit into his place here, learned how to live this life and did so comfortably, and he had no desire to lose it.

And he wasn't as easily pushed around as he had been three years previously.

But even all his acclimatization didn't make him a born and raised ailure, and he'd barely known anything before the Blue Ridge cats had taken him in. Certainly not enough to know how to greet _snow leopards._ To greet people from so wholly different a culture, half a world away.

And, as he'd watched Jensen run himself mad over the last few days, this shit was _important._

At least he hadn't fucked up too bad so far.

Just as he was thinking that, one of the most mesmerizing dominants Jared had ever seen came striding in through the doorway, long legs crossing space purposefully, her chin tilted up and proud and Jared held his breath.  
  
She was an Indian woman, almost as tall as Jared and wasn't that impressive. She had broad shoulders and though her clothing covered most of her body, Jared could easily tell by the way she moved that she had to be pretty ripped. She was wearing a purple silk dress with intricate designs sewn into it in white around the collar and the hem that ended at her thighs. Under the dress she was wearing long cloth pants and flat, slipper like shoes that tapped against the wooden floors with each footfall. On her head was an elegant and layered headdress made of several wraps and scarves, woven together with golden plates and dangling tassels that fell to either side of her high, broad cheekbones.

Her hair, which ran almost to the ground, was bound together in a thick plait and, amazingly, was as white as snow. Her eyes were clear as ice and unflinching, owner and possessor of all she saw. 

She filled the room with her mere presence and Jared honestly had trouble looking away, even to notice the other woman that came in with her, dressed in similar garb.

The tall woman came to a sharp stop in the center of the floor and Jared didn't know if the rest of the room was silent, or if he was too caught up to hear anything else. 

The woman spoke quick and firm, tongue running over foreign words that meant nothing to Jared, her chin never lowering, head kept at that high angle, as if she were above everyone else around her, and, in that moment, Jared couldn't help but agree. He had no idea he was staring until she stopped talking and he realized he was expected to respond -- but he had no idea what had just been said. And he had no idea how to politely explain he didn't speak Hindi.

"My Snow King wishes to tell you that she finds the greatest honor in standing before the last of the holy cats," a voice swooped in, thankfully in English, and Jared's gaze finally fell to the smaller woman, clothed in reds and yellows, dress down to her ankles and a swath of silk hanging from her shoulder. Her hair was jet black, not white, but kept in the same thick braid, and her eyes were green like the spring. "My name is Indraa'hain -- regna to the Pir Panjal Pride of the Himalayas. I am blessed to present my mate to you: Padmavati'hrao, Snow King and ruler of the Kashmir Valley and the Pir Panjal."

Jared's mouth was still working soundlessly when both of the snow leopards bowed at the waist -- Indraa with her hands folded in front of her, against her thighs, and Padmavati with one hand pressed to her chest, the other moving palm out away from her body.

Jared was supposed to say something.

He was _pretty sure_ that he was supposed to say something.

"Um. Welcome." 

Apparently no one said it had to be something _good._

Both the women straightened themselves out and Jared couldn't help but notice that even bowing, Padmavati's head never seemed bent -- as if nothing in the world could lessen her complete and total dominance of her surroundings. Jared flushed a little at that, lifting a hand to self-consciously rub his nose, feeling the tips of his ears go hot.

Jared loved his mate. There was no doubt. But the fertile in him couldn't help but take note of what had to be the most spectacularly powerful dominant he'd ever set eyes on. Because, really. _Sweet Jesus._

Padmavati spoke again, looking at him without wavering, without doubt or fear or complication.

"We have come from Kashmir, India," Indraa translated once her alpha stopped. "We heard the rumors of a Burning Lotus--" Jared hadn't heard that one yet, but if the last couple of weeks had taught him anything, it was that there were a million different names for sabers. "--Rumors that the Hyl'maithen were not truly extinct. We are overjoyed to find truth in this -- to stand before you now. We ask your permission, respectfully, and the permission of your alpha, to remain here on your pride ground for a time, before bringing our good news home to our people."

"I--Yeah-- I mean, of course," Jared flubbed, feeling a little bit like a pre-teen school girl getting to talk to the hottest guy in school, and a little bit wanting to shoot himself for it. He cleared his throat and tried to sit up straighter. "Thank you-- For coming all this way, I mean. And-- Well, whatever you need, don't, uh, don't hesitate to ask."

Indraa turned, murmuring under her breath to her taller mate, and Jared thought his entire face was going to catch on fire when he saw the alpha smirk a little to herself, before looking back at Jared.

"Thank you for your hospitality," Indraa said, then waited to listen to Padmavati talk before translating again. "We will not take up too much of your time. We see that your cub is here with you and we have no wish to separate a mother from time with his children. We shall spend some time meeting with the other alphas who have come here. By your leave, Lord Skybreaker."

"Uh, yeah," Jared responded, trying for a smile. "I hope you enjoy your time here," he added, then promptly felt like an idiot -- what was he? A theme park greeter?

They bowed again, Indraa just as deep and Padmavati a quick dip, respectful but poised. Jared managed to keep his seat until the two snow leopards had turned to go, talking quietly to one another in Hindi, but pushed himself quickly up once they were through the door. He turned and started walking around his chair to go to the kitchen and get some water or something, but froze when he saw Jensen there, leaning against the wall next to the kitchen door.

Leaning against the wall and _smirking_ at him, the bastard.

"Shut up," Jared muttered, feeling heat under his cheeks as he strode past.

"You have a crush," Jensen supplied unhelpfully as he followed his mate into the kitchen

"Shut up!"

"It's sweet."

"I hate you."

"I thought you were going to _swoon."_

"I wasn't going to swoon!" he whirled around to look at Jensen, who was currently defining the phrase 'shit eating grin.' "She was just-- It was very-- I didn't-- Gah!" He threw up his arms. Jensen laughed. "...I hate you," Jared grumbled again, ears feeling like they were on fire.

Jensen was still chuckling when he walked over to his mate, tossing an arm around Jared's waist.

"It's okay, lovely... I get it." He patted his hand firmly against Jared's side. "Hell, I'm a dominant, an _alpha,_ and I get it."

Jared hid his face in his hands and groaned, wishing the ground would just open up and swallow him whole. He was grateful that Jensen wasn't jealous or anything -- after all, it wasn't like Jared _wanted_ anyone else. It was just that his big, mooshy fertile center kept saying _'check out_ that _hunk of dominant,'_ and Jensen seemed to get that: he was just being a _bastard_ about it.

"Well, you can relax now, Jared'hain," Brutus's voice came from the direction of the doorway. "Your new sweetheart has gone to meet with the other visiting alphas."

"Go away," Jared mumbled into his hands.

"Brutus, perhaps you should find the regna a blank diary. I'm sure he wants to catalogue all of his feelings," Jensen chimed in, unhelpfully.

"I hate you both and you," he said, yanking his hands down and giving Jensen a dirty look. _"You_ I am never sleeping with again," Jared responded, giving his mate a pouty shove. He softened when he saw Joey stumbling in at Brutus's feet, walking over and picking her up under her elbows. "You love me, don't you baby?" He pulled her in against his chest, wrapping his arms around her. 

_'Yes, Mom,'_ she replied dutifully, her purr starting up as she was cuddled. 

"I think I'll spend all of my free time with _you_ instead of your dad, who's a big jerk."

"But--!" Jensen spluttered, wandering after them.

"Should have thought of that before you were a big jerk!" Jared returned, swaying out of the kitchen with Jensen at his heels.

But because he was a good mate, Jared let Jensen catch up with them, the alpha slipping his arm back around Jared's waist, and the saber smiled to himself, looking down at their only _slightly_ gimpy daughter. 

Troublemaking and claws and being a big teasing jerk aside, his family was pretty quality.


	6. Chapter 6

Jensen knew 'tired.' He'd felt it before, felt it bone deep in him. It was an old friend, one that had always come to play.

From his youth, his mother encouraging him to run, to fight, to play: training him, in her own way, to be more than he was. Teaching him to never give up, to chase his goals like a deer in the field, until he could wrap his jaws around them. 

He knew 'tired' -- brawling with other dominants in his youth, marking each other up and spitting blood with grins on their faces as they put each other through their paces, testing each other's strength and seeking each others' weaknesses. Knew it when he was a beta, walking in the cold and the rain for days on end, the muscles in his shoulders growing until he became the massive warrior that they'd all talked about.

He knew exhaustion, pure and all through him, standing after the last fight of the last challenge, at the end of trials, blood in his fur and every muscle quivering but the idea of laying down, of showing even a piece of it, so foreign to him that he couldn't even conceive of the notion. He'd known 'tired' so well that it was no longer a word, or a feeling, but a vengeful spirit, real and alive and full of malice.

But a month after he walked out of his home to see a helicopter hovering over them, he became acquainted with another form of tired, one he'd never encountered before: mental exhaustion. 

He'd always had to manage his pride, of course. He negotiated with humans, watched for zoning changes, made sure that his people were safe and protected. He kept a careful watch on their storehouse, made sure there would be enough to account for every single mouth, and if there wasn't, he had plans in reserve for how to get it. He added and totalled their funds and decided how it would be allocated, decided when they'd build a new cabin and where and in what time frame.

He even had long term plans: plans for the future.

But even then he had time to turn his brain off. He hadn't lied to Misha before: an alpha was always an alpha, whether he was awake or asleep, but he'd never known just how far that could extend until he was hosting almost three dozen extra ailure on his pride ground. Ailure from named prides. Ailure that could trace their lineage back to the first cats, or so they said. Ailure who were named in their ancient tongue; who _spoke_ the ancient tongue, and carried all the dignity of their people with them.

Ailure that in all his life, in all his years of dreaming of becoming alpha, he never thought he'd meet. 

Not the least of which being the last fertile saber in the world.

His mate: just as tired and curled up asleep in their den, their cubs curled up in the lee of Jared's body, Nathalie and Debra pressed to Jared's belly and Tristan caught in between Jared's forelegs. Joline laying with her head resting on Jared's snout -- and as wiped as he was, Jensen smiled. 

All his life he'd never quite expected to have this, either. Wanted it, yes. But some smarter, darker part of him had always seemed to prevail in the back of his mind, reminding him to stay distant. To remain _alpha._

He'd never thought he'd find a regna that could equal him.

Jared had been bearing up so well under everything. Jittery and nervous as he was and as worried that he'd mess up, his saber had navigated every awkward step with the best grace he could summon. Done what he'd had to, to protect his parents and brothers. Shielded their children from too much scrutiny. Let himself be looked at and admired and bowed to in all the ways that Jensen knew made Jared uncomfortable.

The fertile didn't think it, would _deny_ it, if confronted, but he was a regna, now. Truly and not just in name only.

The honored mate of an alpha and shouldering the burden of the pride alongside his partner.

But Jensen missed his family, missed just _Jared_ with no titles attached, and missed his children and his time with them. Summer was rushing by and headed into autumn now, and so much of it had flown past attending to the circus going on around them. An amazing, tiring, fantastic, confusing, beautiful, worrying circus that Jensen wanted over and knew he would miss all at the same time.

He hiked himself up the rest of the way into the attic room, slowly and carefully closing the hatch behind him, hand pressed to the wood as he smoothed it down.

 _'Daddy?'_ he heard anyways, and winced.

"Shh," he murmured, turning to see Nathalie with her head up, her long frill dangling in her eyes. "We don't want to wake your mom -- he's tired."

She yawned widely, shoving her paws out in front of herself and paying no mind to the fact that the motion shoved her sister a little.

 _'Dad,'_ came Tristan's voice, and now they were off to the races, Jensen smiling with only a chase of regret as his children raised their heads, looking over at him from their sleepy pile.

"Yes, it's me... But I came here to join you guys for your nap."

 _'M'not tired anymore,'_ Nathalie replied, beginning to get up, jaws stretching out in a second yawn. _'You've been all busy, so long. Can't we go out on walks?'_

Jensen couldn't help but smile to himself. The biggest of his three girls, Nathalie always pushed to be the leader, to be given responsibilities. She was often thwarted by Tristan, who liked to take her down a peg, but Jensen still bragged to his mate that Nathalie was their little beta. She already loved going on patrol with him, having him explain things about the flora and fauna of the mountains. Loved learning about their home. Jared just rolled his eyes and told Jensen to 'stop making plans,' but he couldn't help it.

He was too proud of all of them.

Jensen padded over, lowering himself to crawl onto their bed of blankets, sighing out in pleasure at the idea of rest. He looked down at his silvery mate, reaching over to glide his fingers over that soft fur, stroking his cheek tenderly.

"I know you guys want to go out, but me and your mom need to rest for a bit. Maybe in a little while I can go down and try and find Aunt Cosette or Genevieve and they can take you out for a bit?" He knew he should probably go looking now, but his eyelids were already dragging, and he just wanted to rest for a moment. 

_'But I'm bored,'_ Tristan stated plainly, like it was the biggest problem in the world, and, to a three year old, Jensen supposed it was.

 _"No,_ Tristan. I said no and I meant it. We're going to rest for a little while longer, then we can talk about going out."

 _'But--!'_ his son started again, as stubborn as he was boisterous, and as much as Jensen loved him, he always knew when to put his foot down. Given half an inch on anything, Tristan would run a mile.

"Enough, Tristan. Now, settle back down. I need to--" He cut off when there was a soft knock at the hatch. Jensen sighed, leaning over to keep his voice as quiet as possible when he said: "Yeah?"

The hatch lifted up with a creak and Alona's blonde head popped up through the hole. She smiled when she saw Jared and the cubs but winced almost immediately afterwards, which really only ever meant one thing.

Jensen pursed his lips.

"There's some reason we have to get up, isn't there?"

"Yes," she said, looking guilty. She tried to offer him a conciliatory smile. "It's just...the delegation that we heard about. The one that landed in Raleigh yesterday?"

"From Zambia, yeah," Jensen said with another puff of air, knowing where this was going.

"Just got a call from the major's office -- there's eleven new folks coming up the mountain."

"Any other details?" he asked, scrubbing a hand over his face.

"No." Alona shook her head. "I don't think that the humans could tell the difference, but the call that Misha got before seemed to suggest that there were both cheetahs and lions, and maybe one or two from the leopard prides."

It was one of the most major groups they'd received since the six tigers had flown in from China just under a week ago. Jensen hadn't been present to greet every group that came in, once the numbers just got too high, but there was no way he could neglect greeting ailure that had undertaken such a great journey for a cat, to come to Jensen's pride ground, especially given how loathe to leave their territories ailure were.

And no way that Jared could neglect it either.

Jensen sighed deeply.

"Yeah, alright... Go find me some of the betas. There's should be some kind of fanfare." He scrubbed a hand over his face.   
"We'll be right down."

Alona nodded once, firmly, and lowered the hatch as she descended. The wood made a clipped sound as it slotted into place and Jensen grimaced. Unsurprisingly, he heard Jared snort next to him, head coming up and shaking once as his eyes blinked blearily.

 _'Time'sit?'_ Jared asked, and Jensen turned to look at him. _'What's going on?'_

"The group from Zambia..." he started, as gently as he could.

_'Ugh, no. Don't say it.'_

"Yeah... Yeah."

_'Screw it. Let's just run away and start a new pride. Who needs this one anyways?'_

"C'mon now," Jensen responded, reaching down to gently rub his fingers over Jared's face, feeling the shift of skin just under his hand. God, he'd so been looking forward to get to sleep next to his mate. To just _rest_ and be them for a little while, before the madness started up again.

No chance of that now, though, and Jensen got his legs under him with a groan, pushing himself to stand. He heard several parts of his skeleton wince and crack as he did so.

 _'Hey, hey!'_ Tristan said.

 _'Does this mean we get to go out?'_ Joey joined in, apparently ignoring her tender paw that she was _still_ supposed to be keeping off of. 

Jared was getting up and stretching, shaking himself out, his necklace clanking against itself as he did so.

"Yeah, yeah," Jensen grumbled. "Looks like you get your way again. I guess it's a good thing you guys are so cute, huh?"

Jensen did his best to ignore the chorus of _'yay!'_ s and watched Jared wince at all the noise. 

Back to work, it seemed. 

After all, an alpha was never anything else but an alpha, and an alpha was always on duty.

\-----

Misha set his crate of jugs down over by the tables, pausing to lift a hand and wipe his brow, sweat coming away thin and runny on his wrist. Summer might have been winding down, but the stuffy air hadn't seemed to get that notice, still clinging to the foot hills like a blanket, thick and sweltering. The air was damp now, too, with the rain from just that morning, steaming up from the ground as the afternoon sun shone down through the trees.

As a native of the north, it wasn't Misha's favorite season.

He'd never regretted his move to the south, never regretted leaving his birth pride and home to go somewhere further away, somewhere unknown, but the summer, especially the intense last few weeks, were a close thing. It was enough to make the harsh Maine winters sound appealing.

Most of their guests, at least, didn't seem perturbed. The majority had come from warmer climes than this, and the group from Zambia that had arrived last week had thought it was just adorable when he complained about the heat.

 _'Captain,'_ a voice hailed him, and Misha turned to see Aldis and Katharine approaching, their paws muddy from traipsing over the rain sodden landscape.

"Patrol?" he asked, searching his brain. On a normal day he'd be able to recite where each of his betas were at any given time, always knowing who was on patrol where, but the last few weeks had been completely nuts. These days, he was lucky if he remembered that he needed to eat.

Aldis nodded his head, lithe form padding forward while Katharine turned away.

 _'If you two don't mind,'_ she said, voice tinged with non-specific irritation. _'I'm going to go and throw myself in the river, before this mud hardens up and becomes even_ more _uncomfortable.'_

She twitched her head, trying to flick a clump off of her ear that refused to leave. She was growling to herself as she padded down the slope of pride ground.

"Sounds like you two had a fun time," Misha commented as Aldis moved over to where some spare clothing had been left, sunlight shifting over the barely-there tawny spots -- the last of Aldis's cheetah heritage. The other beta shifted, reaching out to grab some pants and pull them on.

"It's a mess out there. The rain's turned everything into soup, and it looks like there were even a couple of small mudslides out in the hunting ground."

"Anything major?" Misha asked, brow furrowing minutely.

Aldis shook his head.

"Nothing to worry about." The beta reached out for a towel to rub over his face and neck, sweat already springing up in the wake of his shift -- sweat glands replacing fur. He draped it around his neck when he was done, hands hanging on to either end. "The good news is that it looks like the storm kept out any potential trespassers last night."

"A small blessing, it seems." Since the news got out about Jared, human curiosity for their little pride had spiked. It had only gotten more intense once it became clear that ailure around the world were coming to visit them and in the last couple of weeks the betas had stopped multiple groups of people trying to hike onto their land. Most were just curious individuals and groups, but some were obviously associated with the news, stumbling through the wilderness with their heavy cameras.

Thankfully, it always only took a couple of pissy looking betas to scare them off.

All the same, it was clear that their situation couldn't go on forever. There was only so long until someone managed to slip through a patrol or ended up getting themselves injured while trying to traverse the hunting ground. The pride lived on many acres of land and it was impossible to monitor _all_ of it all the time. And Misha definitely didn't want them to end up with a reporter with a broken neck on their hands. Bad enough they'd earned the human's curiosity. Their ire was worse.

"What's going on here?" Aldis asked, walking over to where Misha was standing. The other beta reached out to grab one of the jars of moonshine and Misha wapped his hand away.

"Ah ah, none of that. This is for the party."

"There's a party?"

"Jensen'hrao decided there should be a 'get together.' Honestly, I think he's using it as an excuse for a send off." Misha leaned back against one of the long tables, cut and put together in the last few days by their woodworkers. They were rough hewn but sturdy -- more than enough for their purpose. "Given the time of season, it's not great to have so many strangers around. Not to mention we can't keep this up forever."

"Time of-- Oh!" Aldis looked surprised, blinking a couple of times and shaking his head. "Gods above -- I'd completely forgotten."

"Given everything that's been going on? I'm not surprised." Misha looked down the slope of pride ground, the area animate with ailure. He tapped a finger against the wood under him. "I used to think I was well traveled, being from another pride and all... I never expected to see members from all eight clans on one ground."

"Well, I never expected to see a saber _at all..."_

"Right," Misha huffed a laugh, shaking his head. "I'm so used to having Jared'hain around, at this point... It's hard to remember just how freaking unbelievable it is that he's here at all. Everyone's here to see him, but _I'm_ more blown away by getting to meet a _snow leopard."_ He tilted his head to the side. 

"He's our regna," Aldis replied simply, pulling himself up to sit on the table, pushing his long legs against the ground. "I can _remember_ it being shocking but...now? It just is what it is."

"It is what it is..." Misha repeated. "It's funny but even when I first found out, blown away as I was, I couldn't really see him as anything other than Jared." He still remembered the saber playing with his cubs in those first few weeks, when everything was a mess and Jensen was still in free fall. He still remembered Jared confronting the alpha and getting a punch to the nose for his trouble -- and it was good enough now that that memory made Misha chuckle. At the time, it had felt like he was being broken apart, thinking he might have to order his best friend killed. 

These days, as complex as they were, such misery was a thing of the past. 

As the pride that was home to the last fertile Dawnbringer, nothing would ever be simple for them, and Misha knew that Jared felt some guilt over that. But really, it was a burden the pride shared without resentment.

They had a gift that no other pride on the face of the Earth had. Something that ailure from around the world had come to see, come to give their obeisance, and as irreverent as he could be, even Misha felt the honor of knowing what the gods had given them.

The captain pushed himself off of the table, clapping his hands together.

"Well, things aren't going to set themselves up, are they? You want to help me move all the food out from the storehouse?" They'd be emptying out most of their reserves, but Misha wasn't too concerned. They still had plenty of warm season to stock with and besides, most of their guests had brought rather lavish gifts. He doubted the alpha wanted to trade any for money, but if they had to, they'd at least have the option.

" 'Want'?" Aldis asked with a smirk.

"Just cause you finished hiking through miles upon miles of wilderness doesn't mean you get a free pass," Misha teased with a grin, reaching down to slap the other beta's knee. "C'mon. Nothing like a work _out_ in the hot Carolina sun to work _up_ an appetite."

"My appetite is already pretty _worked,_ thanks," Aldis snorted but got up anyway, folding the towel up and setting it aside. 

"Good man," Misha said, clapping his hand down on Aldis's shoulder. They had a few hours yet to sun down and plenty of things to get done.

\-----

By the time that nightfall came all the tables were set up next to the mainhouse and covered with food and liquor, lights running from the building and out over the edges of the further trees, casing everyone in glow. It wasn't just the visitors who were there, but the whole of the Blue Ridge Pride as well, and Jared was a little blown away by it all.

He'd had never had a party in his honor before.

Well, besides his mom's embarrassingly over-produced birthday parties. But even those were shared between him and his two brothers.

Of course, really, this whole shindig was really to celebrate the pride's over abundance of guests -- but it was impossible to forget why said guests were there. Especially when they kept coming up to talk to him.

"And your children -- do they possess the gifts of your bloodline?" one of the leopards was asking, an eagerness to his eyes that told Jared that he didn't _mean_ to be offensive. He was just excited. Jared took that in stride.

"To be honest, _I_ don't possess any of the gifts from the myths... Really I'm just an ailure, like you. Like everyone here. Just...rarer." Jared smiled amiably, but couldn't miss the flash of disappointment across the other man's face. Jared couldn't exactly blame the guy. It was rough to be sold this idea of divinity only to find it so very human on the other side.

Or...well. _Not_ human. 

"Please do not mind our curiosities, my friend," one of the lions cut in, reaching out a broad hand to take Jared's. He didn't so much shake it as just hold it, clasped between his two. "It is amazing just to be here and to be a part of this. Your children are beautiful, and honor the earth with their presence."

"Thanks," Jared returned with a small smile, proud enough of his kids to accept that. The lion's mate, a female fertile, took Jared's hand in a similar manner, smiling kindly at him, her dark hair held back by a bright band of cloth. She didn't speak any English, but she embraced him like she would a friend, and Jared preferred that anyways.

Jared did his best with names as he took his leave from the group -- five lions, four cheetahs and two leopards, all who'd arrived only a week before -- but he had so many different people to remember at this point that he was just glad he hadn't fucked up already.

Hell, maybe he had and everyone was just too polite to say.

It was a distinct possibility.

The night was in full swing, gas lamps hung up on posts and lighting the area just to the side of the mainhouse, in the open space between it and the line of the forest. The sun had set only a little while ago and the sky was a middling shade of blue, stars blotted out by the light of their home, as if they were in a city and not as far out into the wilderness as someone could get. Their shadows moved about the outline of the area, merging with the darkened trunks of the trees, dozens and dozens of people moving about, talking and eating and drinking like any country fair that Jared had ever been to. Outside of the buzz of voices and the occasional jolts of laughter was the hum of the cicadas and the crickets, their swan song to the season as the heat pushed for one last victory before the autumn took it and the leaves away.

Jared folded his hands into his pockets and looked up at the sky, the faint edges of the Milky Way blinking back at him.

Never in all his teenaged wonderings and fantasies had he imagined himself here: in a pride, part of a pride and comfortable with it. Never would he have thought that he would understand this life almost as much, or maybe better, than his old one. Never would he have thought there'd be three little cubs asleep up in the attic that he'd borne in his own body, and one other that he might as well have. 

Three years ago he'd almost died from guilt. Three years ago he thought he didn't have any real life to look forward to at all.

Now he just didn't know which of a thousand paths to pick.

He felt the edge of his lips curl upwards, lowering his head to look around at the gathered crowd, his pride mingling with their guests, cougars and jaguars speaking with leopards and lions, over coming language barriers as best they could, sharing their conversations as much as their meat and their moonshine. 

It had been a crazy couple of months -- more insanity than Jared knew what to do with, really -- and Jared felt like he could sleep a couple more just to make up for it all. But weirdly, he didn't really regret it. He still felt that niggling worry about his family in the back of his head, but so far so good. Sure, there'd been the awkward questions, alphas asking him how he came to be there, how he'd survived the Yellowstone Incident, and Jared had had to weave some mighty fine tales. Mostly based around plain old lack of knowledge.

It wasn't a lie, really. Jared knew how he'd been found and raised, but he didn't know who his birth parents were or how they escaped the disease that had ravaged the Hyl'maithen forty five years ago. That was something he'd never know, and it was easy enough to tell their guests that he simply didn't have any knowledge of how his parents had come to survive. That he'd lived on his own for as long as he could remember, depending on passing as a human until he'd been taken in by his pride.

It was close enough to the truth that it wasn't hard to tell convincingly, all the way up to finding his son in a basket down the river. All the way up to his lonely march to the place that would one day be his home.

For most of them, it was enough that there were sabers in the world again. That there was someone still praying to bring up the sun, even if Jared did no such thing.

It was enough that they believed it.

"Sin-you," a voice came, breaking his thoughts, and it took Jared a moment to realize that the person was talking to him. He was still adjusting to being called by so many different names. He didn't know _why_ it had never occurred to him that different people would have different names for the sabers -- it just hadn't. Maybe because he'd never realized that his people were nigh worshipped, before Jensen had clued him in.

Jared turned around and saw one of the tigers from the group that had flown in from China, and, if the vague, swirled memory in his head was correct, it was the alpha.

Of course, having met about fifty billion different people from all over the world had left Jared a little muddled on all the details. Which sadly included names.

"Oh, hi-- uh--" Jared tried to stall, but the tiger just smiled easily enough and filled in for him.

"Qiang. Pridekeeper of the Nanling," his voice was smooth and delicate, supplying the information without the slightest bit of anger, and Jared was grateful for that.

"Hey, yeah," Jared replied, holding out a broad hand to shake the other ailure's vigorously. "Glad you could make it, man."

"I wouldn't have missed it." The alpha looked a little jolted by the athletic shaking, but quickly straightened himself out. "I got the impression that this was something of a...farewell, and didn't want to miss my chance."

"Yeah, I mean we have so many visitors at this point, it seemed like a nice way to get everyone to have a good time-- Miss your chance at what?" Jared's brow furrowed in confusion.

"At getting to speak to you, one on one. As expected, your attention is quite jealously hoarded. I would expect no less of a Sin-you -- a saber. The last of your kind."

"Well, not quite," Jared mumbled, trying to deflect the attention as he lifted a hand to rub the back of his neck. "My kids, you know..."

"Of course. But I meant... Well. In any case, have you considered your options?"

"Options?" Jared blinked, hand pausing.

"For where you proceed from here."

"Pro--... I don't get it." He was missing something here. Something vital. 

"I mean that surely it must have occurred to you that there is a plethora of possibility for you here. That powerful individuals from powerful prides all over the world have come to see you. You accidentally stumbled into this pride, but that doesn't mean that it has to be _your_ pride. There are none here that would turn down the honor of having you in their pride. You could have your pick."

"That's very flattering but...I have a home here. A family."

"But that was merely a delivery of circumstance. It doesn't mean that you've made any decision you're stuck with."

Jared frowned a little at that, not really liking where the conversation was going.

"I'm not _stuck_ with anything," he pointed out. "I'm happy here."

"It can't have escaped your notice that they kept you secret here for a reason. If you had been revealed to the world at large when you found them, you would have been taken away almost immediately."

"That doesn't really make it sound any more appealing," Jared chimed in. "And besides, _we_ kept it a secret because it would be safer for me."

"I'm sure that's a very convenient way for you to look at it, but did that happen before or after the alpha made you heavy with his cubs?" Qiang asked with a knowing look and Jared balked immediately.

"Ex _cuse_ me--?!"

"I am more than capable of doing math, honored Dawnbringer. You told us that you came here three years ago -- your children, the ones you birthed, in any case, are just under three years old. The numbers do not lie. Unless you did." Qiang quirked his head to the side, still infuriatingly calm about the whole thing, despite the crap he was spilling.

"My kids _are not_ up for debate, and besides, what does that have to do with _anything?"_

"It has to do with exactly what we were speaking of: the alpha of a nameless pride finds the last of all the Dawnbringers. Instead of declaring his find to the world, he comes to a fertile in heat and then convinces that fertile that their identity must be kept secret for the sake of "their children." It's a convenient story for him, and one that plays all too easily into the maternal instincts of the fertile."

Jared spluttered, never good with emotional confrontations to begin with, and certainly not ones with delegates that he was definitely _not_ supposed to be pissing off. Except _this_ one had pissed Jared off _first._

"Have you seen me going around trying to get a lot of attention? I mean, hey, let's not forget the fact that you don't _know_ me, so I'll clue you in: I don't _like_ having all eyes on me. And besides that, I don't need anything fancy. I had the choice to--" He stopped himself before he pointed out that he could have gone home -- that would bring up all kinds of questions that Jared couldn't answer. "Jensen offered me the choice to go to any other pride. He put that right out there at the beginning. I didn't _want_ to."

"Was that before or after you were carrying his children?" Qiang asked, head slanting to the side, and Jared didn't know if he was grateful or upset that their conversation was taking place off to the side, over by the salting shack, where it was unlikely they'd be heard. Unless Jared set up shouting. Which was a distinct possibility.

"What does _that_ matter?"

"It matters because any fertile would want to remain with the dominant they share a litter with, especially when they're carrying. It's a natural impulse."

"Look, I don't--" Jared swept his hand to the side. "It's not up for debate. I really don't care what you think of me or my decisions. You just need to accept that they're my decisions, and they're not gonna change. I have a family here, and a life, and most of all, I'm happy. Things _work."_

It was at that point that Qiang stepped up into Jared's space, and Jared balked a little, taking an automatic step back. Qiang was a dominant, but he was a few inches shorter than Jared(as most people were), but Jared had always backed away from a fight, and living here had taught him why. It wasn't that he didn't have a will that wanted to be exercised. He did. And it wasn't like he was some shy, wilting violet. He wasn't. But it wasn't in his nature to confront or be combative, and when a dominant moved towards him aggressively, with was automatic and instinctive for Jared to step back, even if he was the bigger guy.

As a human, it had always made him feel like a pansy.

As an ailure, he recognized that it was just nature.

"You live in _danger_ here. Your alpha consorts with humans far too freely, and far too permissively. You can't have forgotten that it was _humans_ that wiped your people out, that took your blessed kind away from us. It was _their_ wars and _their_ fights that destroyed the Hyl'maithen, and yet you live with a pride that trades with them regularly, that _trusts_ them. You live with an alpha that calls them 'friend.' Perhaps you are willing to take a risk like that but I am not, and I'm sure many of the alphas here would agree with me. We cannot leave you in danger, leave the last saber on the face of the Earth to die from human hands. We thought your people were wiped out, and we will not go back to that. To regain you only to _lose_ you again."

The words were said with something like desperation that almost made Jared feel sympathetic. Almost made him want to placate and ease, to comfort, even though the tiger had him backed up against the wall of the salting shack. Almost.

But then Qiang continued and Jared didn't feel so sympathetic anymore.

"What's worse, leaving you to mate with a common cougar. To have nameless children in a nameless pride, when you are the most precious creature in all the world. You could have your pick here -- of any of the clans. The children of Neera are plain. They were so easily tricked out of their markings, and you deserve more. Deserve better."

"Better than a common cougar?" another voice interrupted before Jared could completely screw all his diplomatic efforts by cursing the tiger out. Jared's eyes flicked over to behind Qiang, seeing the alpha of the Hopi cougar pride -- Ahote had left not long after he'd arrived, going home to tell his alpha that the news was true, that there really was a saber in the east. Qaletaqa had made the journey soon after, and Jared had had a little more time to talk with him than some of the others, as he'd arrived before the deluge.

Qiang backed off a little, turning to look at the cougar alpha, whose black hair was loose and falling around his shoulders, his arms crossed.

"Please, tell me again, Trickster," Qaletaqa continued. "Tell me of how my clan is plain and stupid, tricked out of our stripes by your conniving Great Father." His voice was deep and steady, not loud but booking no argument. It was that way that dominants got sometimes -- not needing to yell to control the conversation, and Jared had never managed to master it. Oh, he could scream his head off with the best of them, but people didn't tend to take him seriously.

"There is no need for shame, cougar," Qiang responded, uncowed. "You can't be blamed for your ancestor's stupidity."

Qaletaqa bared his teeth momentarily, but didn't hiss. Instead he jerked his chin up, letting his lips curl in a hard smirk.

"You're right. We cougars have learned from our mistakes. It seems, however, that the tigers have not. Still shaming yourselves with your pride -- cornering a fertile? It seems stupidity still runs thick in your blood."

Qiang _did_ hiss at that, lips drawing back over his teeth and curling up. His body was perfectly human, but ailure had a way of translating their cat body language even into this form in a way that humans couldn't -- made him look just as vicious and powerful as his four legged self would be.

Behind Qaletaqa stood another tiger, one Jared had seen but didn't know by name, shaking his head once. It was a minute gesture, but Jared caught it out of the corner of his eye and Qiang growled but lowered his lips. He scowled deeply at Qaletaqa and then turned back to Jared, and, for a moment, Jared thought he was going to say something. Instead, the alpha turned and strode away -- possessing that inherent confidence that alphas had, that he could walk away from an argument and still not look like he was at all defeated.

"You will have to forgive my alpha," the second tiger said, taking a step forward. He was looking at Jared apologetically. "Qiang'hrao is a great pridekeeper, but he is as effected by the curse of the tiger as any." 

"I-- You don't have to--" Jared started, but, as he'd learned recently, it was kind of a lost cause. "Curse?"

"Everyone knows that all Great Cats are born with an excess of pride. But we tigers carry our pride on our skin." He smiled, not unfriendly, but as if sharing a joke. "They say it is the curse of the tiger to believe that all the world is in love with his stripes, because he cannot help but be in love with them himself." He bowed once, briefly and gracefully. "My name is Zheng. I hope my presence doesn't disturb you."

"No, it's fine, I'm just a little..." Jared made a meaningless motion with his hands, always thinking that people could follow his crazy. Zheng was polite enough not to comment on it.

"It is my greatest pleasure and honor to make your acquaintance. To see a saber with my own eyes was something I thought was beyond even the dreaming. When we heard the news, we did not, at first, believe."

"I--thanks," he said, a little distracted, what with everything that had just happened, but doing his best to keep up.

"Are you alright?" Qaletaqa interceded, eyes giving Jared a cursory once over, as if any kind of physical altercation had occurred.

"Yeah, I'm fine. I mean, he wasn't going to _hurt_ me. He was just being an asshole-- Crap." He winced and glanced at Zheng. "Sorry."

The tiger just chuckled.

"Please, I understand your frustration. As I said, Qiang'hrao is a good pridekeeper: he is passionate and determined and loyal to a fault. But he is also young and hotheaded, and sometimes his passionate heart leads him down paths he shouldn't take." He softened, looking Jared in the eye. "Do accept my apology on his behalf."

"Are you his captain?" Jared asked, in lieu of answering. Qiang had been an asshole, like Jared said, but he genuinely believed that the alpha hadn't intended to hurt him. That didn't mean he was quite ready with _forgiveness_ yet. 

"Captain?" Zheng looked confused for a moment, then realization settled over his features. "Ah, the second. No, I am not. The second of our pride is back at home, attending to our family. I am...an advisor, I suppose. In our prides, the alpha has a kind of counsel that they avail themselves of, in making their decisions."

"You should _advise_ your alpha more often, in my opinion," Qaletaqa commented, still looking fairly displeased, powerful arms still crossed over the thick barrel of his chest. Zheng just took the comment in stride, chuckling to himself with good humor.

"I shall take that suggestion to heart, Honored Alpha."

Jared took a deep breath, pushing himself off of the wall of the salting shack, hands dusting off his clothing as if anything had happened, but the motion made him feel better. He'd known the topic would be brought up eventually, but that didn't mean he had to like it, and he hadn't really expected it to be so focused on the status of his pride. Jensen had mentioned multiple times that Jared was "mating below his station" and Jared had always brushed the comments off, because they were silly and clearly not serious. Except now Jared was beginning to think that Jensen really _had_ been serious.

And that thought made Jared frown a little.

"And you're fine?" Qaletaqa asked again, still with that same somewhat stoic expression -- stern, like a father who was worried about his kids. The alpha looked to be in his sixties, so it was quite possibly the case that he was used to being everyone's dad.

"Really, I'm fine." Jared held up both hands. 

"I will admit some worry to leaving you here... But I suppose that's only natural." The cougar sighed, shrugging his broad shoulders. "While I would never want to pressure you -- to pressure _any_ fertile -- this pride is too close with humans for my liking. 'To each pride their own governance' as we have always believed, but never before have we trusted a single pride with the last sacred cat."

Jared pursed his lips, thinking about it, and he got the concept, even if he had trouble thinking of himself as anywhere near that important. He could imagine leaving one of his kids with another pride, and how freaked out by that he'd be, and that was enough to empathize.

"All I can tell you is that we've been fine the last three years, and that...I grew up around humans, mostly. It's what I'm used to. And here? They get me. They get my...humanness. And I know that I could pick any pride or go with any pride or whatever but...this is the one I want to be with."

"I believe the others wish to bring it up before they take their leave," the cougar responded, slowly uncrossing his arms. "There are certainly more than just Qiang'hrao who have their concern."

"Well, concern is great and all," Jared replied, brow furrowed. "But they know that it's _my_ decision, right?"

"I think most do know that, yes. But you need to know...You're more than just yourself, now. You represent something to our people, to all ailure, across the world." Qaletaqa reached out, putting his weathered hand over Jared's shoulder. "You're your own person -- there's no doubt of that. But you're something else, as well. A symbol. Something that...means something to us."

In any regular circumstance, Jared might have disagreed, but there was something wet and emotional in the older ailure's eyes that stalled him. Jared wasn't part of this culture, not indigenously. He could understand the ideas, but the feelings, the depth of those feelings, was something he just had to accept without knowing personally.

"If something were to happen to you, we would be lost. Even more so than when we lost your family, your pride -- because it would be the realization of joy snatched away from us at the last minute. We already know what it felt like to lose you once and given that...given all of that, it's hard not to worry. Hard not for each of us to think you would be safest under our own protection." 

"It's the nature of being an alpha, is it not?" Zheng supplied, glancing up at Qaletaqa. "The need to protect."

The cougar huffed a self-deprecating laugh, dropping his hand away.

"It is at that. Good intentioned though it may be, we're born with no dearth of hubris," he said.

Jared was acquainted with it. His mate, after all, was an alpha, and Jared still remembered three years ago, with Jensen so deep in blaming himself that he took it out on everyone around him. So convinced of his own failing that he wanted the rest of the world to blame him too. To make everyone hate him as much as he hated himself.

And sure, he'd turned that around and things had gotten better, but Jared was privy to all of Jensen's more private freak outs and melt downs, and he was more than familiar with the double edged sword of being alpha: to be protective and a natural leader. But at the same time, to take everything to heart. To believe that the problems of the world rested firmly and squarely on one set of shoulders alone.

And Jared was in the middle of a whole mess of alphas, all of whom thought it was _their_ responsibility to care for the last saber in the world.

He winced a little.

"Jensen is planning on asking everyone to leave tonight. This was meant to be a kind of send off," he admitted. He knew that some of the visitors had already guessed -- Qiang certainly had. 

"Then I highly suspect that this isn't the last of the topic you'll be hearing," Qaletaqa responded, one eyebrow arched. Jared lifted a hand, biting absently at his thumb nail as he looked out at the crowd.

"Yeah," he said. "I kind of got that impression."

\-----

A few hours into the party, Jensen wasn't as drunk as he looked.

_Mostly._

It was hard to abstain when people kept wanting to drink with him, chatting over their clear jars of moonshine, and it wasn't a _weak_ alcohol by far. It wasn't so bad at first, but after the first few hours and several batches of alphas wanting to talk with him, he was beginning to feel the effects a little.

Which wasn't great, given that the main purpose of this gathering was for him to address their visitors en mass. 

His desire to not fall over prompted him to move that speech up, however, and it was well before midnight that he stepped onto one of the benches and then up onto a table, feet against the worn wood. He steadied himself under the light of the gas lamps and the string of Christmas lights run from the mainhouse(lights that Jared had bought a couple of years ago, down in town, insisting that their kids were getting a 'real Christmas'). The buzz of conversation began to die down automatically, first eyes turning to him and then others stopping to look and see what the cause of the quiet was, until there was silence without him ever having to call for attention.

He clasped his hands together in front of himself and spread his best smile over his lips.

"Thank you all for being here," he started, projecting his voice but not needing to much, the mountain air clear and quiet. "It's been an honor to have you all as our guests and we hope that you've been enjoying your time on our pride ground. We never expected to be given the gift we were -- we never expected that, of all prides in the world, we would be the ones to find the last Dawnbringer. We never expected to have so many great ailure come to visit us; ailure from ancient, named prides the world over. The gifts you have brought us, while beautiful and rare, pale in comparison to the gift of being your acquaintance, and I can only hope that you have gotten as much out of this great gathering of prides as we have."

He paused then, letting the platitudes sink in, letting those translating finish up the first part before starting again.

"However, the summer is waning, and I'm sure you all know what that means -- in a couple of weeks my fertiles will be entering Urrou's spell. As alphas and betas, I'm sure you can appreciate my need to care for them. Having so many strangers around during their heat would only be distressing to them, and as much as I've been blessed by your presence here, by being host to such guests, as an alpha my responsibility lies first with the fertile." He glanced over the crowd, seeing many nodding heads. There was a great diversity amongst their people in terms of how prides operated and in terms of their customs and beliefs.

But no pride denigrated the fertile. And no pride would risk their health.

Jensen's eyes flicked over when he saw a hand go up to catch his attention, one of the jaguar's from the Yucatan peninsula stepping forward.

"None here would endanger your fertiles. We perfectly understand why you would ask us to leave," he said, and there were murmurs of agreement in the crowd. "However, that doesn't mean that we automatically believe that the Hyl'maithen should stay with you."

Jensen pursed his lips, but didn't object. At least, not directly.

"And what do you propose?"

"I'm not sure I propose anything, specifically. Certainly not my own pride. Very few of my people speak English -- he would be uncomfortable amongst us, at best. I'm not sure I even propose he go with any other pride, so much as I ask _what_ we propose to do in the future. Even if he does stay here, he is important to our people. I--" He stopped, pausing as he rubbed his hands together, palm against palm. "For almost fifty years we have lived alone. All of us, every ailure, has lived without our light of hope in the world. With one clan, the first clan, the _sacred_ clan, gone from us. We thought we had lost our connection to the gods. We do not dare lose it again."

Jensen's eyes searched the crowd then, knowing his mate was out there but silent. There were dozens of faces, those familiar and from his own pride and those new, their guests and ailure from across the globe. Jensen knew, when he'd chased Jared down the river, when he'd come to his fertile in heat, that he had no right to ask for the last fertile Dawnbringer to be his. 

He'd known that then, and he'd accepted that there might one day come a time when he'd have to give that up. At the time, he'd considered it an honor to have at all.

Now, he had a mate. Someone more than just the symbol that the others saw, but the person who completed his family.

When he caught Jared's face in amongst the hundred, he saw his fertile was rubbing the back of his neck, wearing that abashed expression he got whenever the conversation turned to something he wasn't quite comfortable with. Jensen knew it well.

His eyes flicked back to the jaguar.

"I claim no ownership," Jensen said. "The gods gave me my life, gave me my pride, and gave me the land over which I rule. But none of these are mine. My people give me their faith, and their trust, and they give me power over them. But none of these things belong to me. Once, without asking, and without at first knowing what he was, the gods gave me my mate. Only fate and the river know what comes for us, my friends, and it was the river who brought the last child of Yrsa to me. All I can do is ask him what he wants." Jensen turned again to look at Jared, but this time with more than just a quick flash of his eyes. "Jared. It is your choice."

The crowd shifted, eyes following the line of Jensen's gaze and Jared started when everyone turned to look at him, attention falling on him. The saber shifted a little frantically and tried to straighten himself out.

"Um," he started, eyes casting about. He shook his head a little. "Here. I want to stay here. I'm...sorry. I know you all came here expecting something more, something bigger, but...this is just who I am. I've never been anyone special. I didn't _know_ I was anyone special until recently. I wish I had more to give. But to be honest I'm only just figuring things out for myself, and...and this is the place that's good for me to do that."

He stopped then and thought about it, then shrugged, as if he could come up with nothing better to say. Jensen, though, just smiled. It wasn't the most eloquent speech. It wouldn't be remembered by their people. But no matter what anyone else thought, it wasn't coerced. And even with a dozen other options in front of him, Jared still chose here. Still chose him.

"And so long as you have need of us," he said, voice lower, too touched to project it with much vigor, but he hoped Jared would hear. "You shall always have a place amongst us."

Jared looked up at him, across the crowd, and for a moment they just stood there, as if it were them and no one else. 

Jensen took a moment to gather himself.

He thanked everyone for coming again, and spoke for awhile of plans for the future -- that their pride would always be open to those who wished to visit, should they or others come again. He wished everyone well and hoped they enjoyed the rest of the evening, before stepping down from the table.

By the time people were headed to their dens, he'd found his mate in the crowd, and the two of then stood together to give their gratitude to those in passing. Jensen felt one of Jared's hands slip into the alpha's back pocket, calm and casual and just like mates, so easily invading each other's space, as natural as breathing, and it made Jensen smile to himself.

He smiled even more when the Snow King and her mate came to give their farewells for the evening. He could feel Jared tense next to him and Jensen didn't look, but he was sure his mate was turning some unattractive shade of red. He felt no jealousy at what Jared now referred to as his _giant girl crush_ (Jensen had pointed out that Padmavati was really too old to be called a girl anymore. Jared pointed out that _she_ was not the 'giant girl' in question). It was a passing attraction that meant nothing more, and besides, it was kind of adorable to watch.

Padmavati seemed fairly aware of it too, as she came confidently forward, lifting one hand to press the pads of her fingers under Jared's chin, tilting it up. Indraa was standing just behind her, one knuckle pressed against her lips to hide a smile and it seemed she got just as much amusement from the Skybreaker's crush as Jensen did.

Padmavati began to speak and Indraa cleared her throat, trying to tamp down that sly smile so that she could translate.

"You give more than you know," the fertile said, waiting as Padmavati spoke again, then continued. "Just by being here, you have given us all hope in something that we believed long past. Remember this, if you remember nothing else:--"

Padmavati looked him in the eye, gaze intense and close. She spoke again, something quick and short, and Indraa's voice came soft from behind her.

"You, sweet Skybreaker, belong to no one."

Jared just stood there, blinking once. Before he could respond, however, the snow leopard stepped back, shifting to put one long arm around the shoulders of her shorter mate, the two of them turning to go.

"Thank you for your hospitality," Indraa said, looking at Jensen.

"It was our honor to have met you both," the alpha replied, Padmavati nodding in agreement as Indraa translated. The Snow King's eyes slid mischievously over to Jared though, and she said something low and curling and Indraa let out a little bark of laughter before she clapped a delicate hand over her mouth. Her shoulders were still shaking silently as she lowered it, trying to speak evenly.

"My alpha would like you to know that she has been touched by your affection, Jared'hain, and that if she were not already in love, she would have been certain to have returned it."

"Oh god," Jared said, hiding his face in his hands, but Padmavati continued on with the same self-satisfied smile.

"She wishes for your continued health and happiness, both of you -- though she asks the honored alpha to look after her 'fragile Lotus' for her."

"Oh god!" Jared's face was invisible behind the shield of his hands, but his ears looked like they just might start emitting steam, despite the warmth of the Carolina air, and Jensen did his best to say goodnight without laughing as the two snow leopards made their way down the slope and towards where they'd been nesting.

Jensen couldn't keep from chuckling, though, when Jared turned to bury his face in the alpha's shoulder, and Jensen put an arm around his mate.

"I can never show my face in public again."

"Oh it's not _that_ bad."

"Whatever. I'm going to go drown myself in the river."

"Drama queen," he replied, having picked up the phrase from Jared -- a colloquialism that got pulled out whenever one of their kids was throwing a tantrum. Jared just groaned.

"C'mon, it really _isn't_ that bad." Jensen glanced up, looking around to see most of the crowd clearing up, though there were still those socializing around the tables, both their guests and Jensen's people. He glanced over to Misha and some of the beta, getting a nod from his old friend before drawing Jared away and back towards the mainhouse.

"It wasn't, you know," Jared said as they walked, finally dropping his hands from his face and Jensen looked over at him curiously.

"Wasn't what?"

"That bad. Having everyone here. It was... I liked it, in a way. Getting to meet all these different ailure from all over. There's all this stuff I don't know, that I never knew, about being...this. Me. An ailure. That I just missed out on cause of where I come from." Jared shrugged. "And that's not awful, but still. It was nice getting to know more."

Jensen softened, moving his arm down to loop around his mate's waist.

"I'm glad, then," he replied.

"Having said that, I think I'm just gonna sleep for the next month."

And Jensen couldn't argue with that at all.


	7. Chapter 7

Urrou's Cove was warm and shaded, the slant of the sun lowering as it dipped in the sky, casting the rock in oranges and yellows, like fire crawling through the ivy on the walls. The steady crash of water from the waterfall filled the quiet of the evening, the babbling of the stream constant as it flowed through the center of the Cove, straight down the middle and into the ground. The only other sound was the rasp of paws over stone and the gentle rhythm of a purr somewhere to his right and Jared lay on his back, hands behind his head as he shut his eyes.

It really wasn't so bad a set up.

He wouldn't have said that he looked forward to his heats or anything. He was still vaguely uncomfortable with the whole notion, and not having to live his life on a set biological schedule would have been nice, but it was still nothing compared to the misery of the first few years.

Nothing could be quite so traumatic as his first heat had been.

And nothing quite so lonely as the heats after it.

He'd been in the middle of nowhere in Kentucky when he'd gone through his second heat. Later, he would learn that they were usually spaced about six months apart, but at the time, he had no idea what was normal, or that his body was still adjusting. It had come only three months after the first, the long, interminable first, and Jared had curled up on the bed in the crappy motel room he'd paid for and shivered, giving in to the realization that it wasn't a one time thing. That the sickness that had plagued him back home was still eating away at his insides, and before that he'd been so close to just giving in and going back, to hoping that maybe it was just a one time thing.

It was the second heat that had caused him to decide he was never going home again. It was the second heat that had him researching werecat prides and looking for a place where he could live where no one would notice him -- would think he was just part of the local population and nothing more. He'd get a tent and some tins of beans and a knife and he'd just go and hide away where no one could find him.

It was his first heat that caused him to run, but it was the second that made him stay away.

The next two years were spent in the forest, alone and in isolation. The heats had come regular like clockwork and he'd hated them every time. He hated the feeling of his skin too tight and too hot, the feeling of anxiety and restlessness, pacing his clearing and rubbing himself needfully against the trunks of the trees, yowling when he couldn't contain it anymore. 

Each and every time they'd been a reminder of what was wrong with him, a reminder that he could never go home and that he'd always be the freak, always be the odd man out. 

Thankfully, 'always' had only lasted two years. 

He blinked a few times when he felt a weight settle down across his middle and he looked up to see the light of the setting sun in Adrianne's golden hair, haloed and glowing. Her thighs were spread over his bare stomach, the both of them topless but wearing pants, and Jared smiled, reaching out to put one hand on either side of her waist.

"Hey," he said in greeting, and she smiled at him.

"Hey," she replied, shifting to lay down against his chest, and he wrapped his arms around her, just the sensation of skin against skin comforting. It wasn't considered strange or abnormal at all for fertiles to have sex during their heats, or to soothe one another through touch. Jared had been _extremely_ uncomfortable with the whole idea at first, still stuck thinking of heat as something shameful and wrong, and couldn't help viewing any kind of non-platonic touch as cheating. It didn't matter how many times Jensen told him it wasn't the same, it hadn't really sunk in for Jared until he'd gone to the Cove and he and Adrianne had formed a bond.

They didn't have sex, neither of them particularly interested in that, but they spent most of their heats together, grooming each other in their cat forms or cuddling as humans. In the last year or so, they'd made out a couple of times, lazy and non-sexual, just the touch enough to calm them. He hadn't gotten it, not until he'd had Adrianne's tongue in his mouth and realized he wasn't attracted to her at all. She was beautiful, sure, and he recognized that, but neither of them were attracted to other fertiles. Gender didn't seem to matter -- both of them desired dominants. The feeling of a body against his, warm and companionable, made heat easier, made it almost enjoyable, but it was all very different from how he felt with Jensen, how he felt about their relationship together.

He'd never been turned on by Adrianne, just as she'd never been turned on by him, but just running his hand up and down her bare back was soothing, and after his first experiences with heat, he was grateful for it. Grateful that he didn't have to be alone anymore, and that this feeling wasn't something he had to be afraid of. He didn't look forward to his heats, but he didn't dread them anymore, and that was a step in the right direction.

Adrianne buried her face in the crook of his neck and Jared rolled onto his side, the both of them holding each other.

His first time secluding in the Cove, he couldn't see the way the fertiles were with each other as anything but infidelity against their mates. Now he understood that it was the furthest thing. 

He doubted he'd ever get to the point where he'd be comfortable with all out sex, still too human and too based in human thought to be fully okay with that for himself, but he also didn't really need it. The pain of heat was in being alone. Suffering through it alone, untended to and unloved. Here, in the Cove, Adrianne dozing lightly and someone else gently licking the back of his shoulder with a rough tongue, he felt nothing like alone. He felt no sexual desperation, no ache. 

Just the warmth of family -- pride all around him.

\-----

The sound that woke him was that of claws on stone screeching. Jared jolted, teeth grinding together at the squeal and Adrianne's fingernails dug into his skin.

"Ow!" he said instinctively, one eye open more than the other and it wasn't the most pleasant way to come into consciousness.

"Oh my god," Adrianne groaned, and he could hear some of the other fertiles mumbling in protest as well, heads raising from the ground to look around the Cove -- midnight blue now with twilight, not darkened but darkening and possessed of an almost preternatural glow. The whole place had always had a bit of an otherwordly feel to it, for Jared, and dawn and dusk only highlighted that quality.

Right now, though, he was less concerned with that and more concerned with whatever the hell was breaking their peace.

"What was _that?"_ he muttered as he sat up, looking around. His vision was bleary with half-sleep, and it took him a moment to spot the young ailure pacing through the middle of the gully, the white stretch of claw marks left in stone behind him.

"Cole," Adrianne explained, voice groggy as she rubbed her eyes, laying back down against the moss.

"What?"

"S'his first heat."

"Shit," Jared cursed, realizing he'd completely forgotten. Things had been such a mess with people coming and going, with all the delegates and visitors and politics, regular pride life had been completely buried. Living in a little mountain colony of about a hundred and fifty people didn't give a lot to entertainment -- normally, _everything_ was big news. It was natural for the pride to get a bit gossipy and for everyone to get in everyone else's business. Seasonal changes and pride traditions were a big deal, and someone's first heat was one of those traditions. 

But it turned out that having your whole pride under scrutiny by the world at large kind of messed up your day to day life. Jared remembered hearing that someone had hit their first heat and gone to the Cove early, but he hadn't paid it too much attention, still dealing with the last few visitors to leave.

"How long's he been in here?" Jared asked, sitting up. He propped up his knees, resting his arms against them, Adrianne lounging next to him. Jared's first heat had been brutally long -- a whole month -- and it had been fiercely powerful as well. These days heat was a discomfort, sure, and when it got intense, okay, he had a tendency to rub up against things, but it was nothing compared to the long, drawn out frenzy of that first time, where he felt like he was crawling out of his own skin. 

Most heats lasted only a week, maybe a little less, but a first heat could last much longer.

"Week and a half already," Adrianne supplied, voice sympathetic. "Mine lasted two. Maybe he's drawing to a close?"

"With all of us putting out hormones?" Jared clicked his tongue. "I'm betting it'll last until the rest of us are done. But either way...poor kid. He's gotta be going nuts, stuck in here like this."

Adrianne just nodded slowly in response, the two of them watching the younger fertile pace back and forth, his paws tramping angrily against the stone, tail twitching. Heat tended to be more comfortable in cat form( _true_ form, Jensen would say), but Jared and the others had only just started, only come to seclude themselves the day before, and Jared wasn't yet at the point where he couldn't find solace in human shape. It wasn't something he flipped out over anymore.

The whole thing was less dramatic and less caustic than it used to be.

But that wasn't the case for Cole, who was going through it for the first time. Sure, it wasn't as rough as Jared's(few things were), and the kid had grown up expecting this and knowing what it was, grown up knowing that there was nothing wrong with him, but that didn't change the sucking. Because it still _sucked._ It would still feel awkward and too hot, restless. It would still feel like a bunch of bugs under his skin, and being trapped in the Cove and away from his friends and normal life for two weeks wasn't going to help.

It was with that that Jared resolved himself. 

After all, he was older, and he'd been through this crap. And he wasn't some newcomer anymore. He was regna and a part of the pride -- there was no reason for him to sit back and watch Cole pace himself a hole in the ground.

Jared pushed his hands under him, glancing over at Adrianne.

"I think I'll go take him out on a walk -- some fresh air and fresh scenery will do him good. Maybe it'll help him relax some."

"Aw, that's sweet," Adrianne smiled, not teasing at all but genuine, and it made Jared feel a little bit like a kitten getting cooed over. He rolled his eyes at her.

"You wanna come?" he offered, but the golden fertile just shook her head.

"No. You two go bond. If it's me and you, we'll end up talking like we always do, and you know how shy the kid is. He won't get a word in edgewise."

Jared nodded his head from side to side, acknowledging the fairness of that assessment. Jensen often left the room when Adrianne and Jared were together -- they both kind of had the habit of talking at a million miles an hour, and usually at the same time, voices overlapping and getting louder as they continued. Louder, and sometimes higher.

They were chatty, so sue them.

He told Adrianne he'd see her in a bit and pushed himself to his feet, dusting off his hands, an automatic and silly motion, given that he was about to be walking around on all fours. He went over to a nook in the wall, where some shelves had been carved, glancing around before he striped off his pants. No one cared, of course, and Jared didn't exactly have privacy, but it was ingrained in him to check anyways. He folded the pants up and shifted his form, watching the world change -- become lower, louder, more dense with scent and deep with meaning. He wondered how different his life would have been if he'd grown up with this, grown up _as_ this, knowing the world on this wild level and not so purely human.

He hadn't, of course, and there was no changing that now, but he still thought he was adapting well.

There was a lot less, these days, that freaked him out.

He padded over towards the pacing other fertile, smaller than Jared and a plain tan -- none of the small striping that the dominants had, and certainly nothing as noticeable as Jared's coat. Jared also stuck out with how long his body was, legs long and more slender than the slightly more stocky cougar build. It made him feel a little self conscious sometimes, but he always flashed back to his first day in the Cove: finding himself welcomed without reservation. 

Now, it was his turn to give.

 _'Hey,'_ he said simply as he approached Cole, butting his head in under the young fertile's chin and halting his movements. The teenager shuffled back, eyes darting away.

 _'Hi,'_ he returned, but said nothing else.

_'I heard about how long you've been stuck in here... It's a nice place and all, but after a week or so it can get kind of boring, huh?'_

_'Yeah... A bit, I guess.'_ Cole was still avoiding his gaze, rocking his weight from paw to paw.

_'So, I was thinking -- maybe it'd be nice to go out for a bit? Just stretch our legs and maybe have some space to run? Just for an hour or two, then we'll come back. What do you say?'_

Cole glanced up at him, skeptical, and took a moment to think before replying.

_'I dunno... We're not supposed to leave the Cove, right?'_

Jared shook his head.

 _'It's not like that,'_ he replied. _'The Cove is here for our comfort -- we can go whenever and wherever we'd like. I've gone out on walks before, and so has pretty much everyone else. Like I said, being stuck in here for a week can get to be a bit much. We all go out for breathers, when we need it, and I know you have to be crawling the walls by now. You don't have to, if you don't want to. It's just... I remember my first heat. And 'sucked' is not even the word for it. I figure...if I can make things a little easier for someone else, then it'll count for something, you know?'_

Cole paused, as if unsure if he should answer, then tentatively nodded.

 _'So what do you say?'_ Jared asked again, letting the edges of his lips curl upwards in a smile. Cole hesitated again, but then smiled slowly in response, nodding again shyly and Jared grinned to himself, leaning in to bathe the younger fertile between the ears. 

_'C'mon then...'_ he said, turning towards the lone exit. _'Let's blow this popsicle stand.'_

 _'What's a popsicle stand?'_ Cole asked as he followed Jared.

_'...nevermind.'_

\-----

Just outside the entrance to the Cove, the long, narrow passage, was its near constant and stalwart guardian. Jeff wasn't _always_ there, of course. The man had to eat. But he seemed very proud of the fact that he had no family but the fertile and swore up and down that this was where he was meant to be.

Jared often had trouble figuring Jeff out, but despite his somewhat annoying aloofness and general _weirdness,_ Jeff had somehow managed to become one of Jared's best friends over the last three years. The guy was kind of like a mentor to him(though Jared wouldn't admit that. To anyone. Ever), and Jared had more than once found the answer to his flip out du jour in some hippie stoner piece of advice that Jeff would drawl out. And that friendship had more than once cause Jared to bully the beta into coming back to pride ground to sleep in an actual _bed_ every now and again, and not be such a hermit.

(Jared ignored the irony of _him_ saying that)

But nothing Jared had ever said had managed to get Jeff to relax during heats. The beta was always at his post at the entrance to the Cove, seemingly immune to the fertile's pheromones if his complete lack of reaction was anything to go by. Jared _might_ have gnawed on the older cat's tail once, when he was high on hormones and thought playing around like a kitten would be a good idea. But Jared was copping to nothing.

 _'Hey,'_ Jared greeted as he strolled out from between the two walls of rock. 

_'Everything alright?'_ the dark cougar asked, raising his head from the ground.

_'Yeah, we're fine. Just going for a stroll.'_

Jeff nodded, finding none of this to be remarkable and lowering his head back down -- but there was another beta there too, one that had watched the same post with Jeff for the last three years. Ever since some asshole had decided Jared needed a bodyguard.

 _'Not without me you're not,'_ Brutus said firmly, stepping forward from the other side of the entrance. _Other_ fertiles could go out into the woods by themselves. _Other_ fertiles got a moment of peace to themselves and it was no big deal. Jared? Jared had to deal with his babysitter.

 _'Oh_ c'mon. _We're going to go like fifty feet out into the woods. You're such a negative Nancy.'_

 _'Stop being human at me,'_ Brutus responded, too used to Jared obliquely mocking him with human sayings and phrases that Brutus didn't know -- by this point, Brutus assumed that anything he didn't immediately recognize was some kind of joke or slur against his name or something. _'And it's the same discussion we've had before. No, no, and no. If you're going out, I'm coming too.'_

Jared sighed, rolling his eyes(which was a lot more difficult in this form than people gave him credit for) and glanced down to the younger fertile tucked up against his side. 

_'Sorry, dude. I forgot to mention_ the tag-along.'

 _'Is it okay?'_ Cole asked, glancing uncertainly at the dominants. The kid knew how heat worked, but that didn't mean that knowing and feeling was the same. Jared understood -- there was a certain discomfort in being around dominants during heat. It was an absent feeling that Jared could ignore most of the time, but he recognized it was some older, animal instinct, warning him away from potential danger.

The instinct didn't know that there was nothing on this planet less dangerous than Jeff and Brutus. The only threat they posed was mothering people to death.

 _'Yeah, it's fine. Brutus is annoying but harmless. He'll keep an eye on us, okay?'_ He bumped his shoulder against Cole's, going for amiable and it seemed to work, the younger fertile smiling hopefully, though he stayed pressed to Jared's side.

The three of them set off down the slope towards the treeline, Jared in the lead with Cole walking next to him, and Brutus somewhere behind them. The forest was beginning to turn red with autumn, leaves dipping into oranges and yellows, changing branches interleaved with the evergreens, their needles still thick and verdant even as the weather turned colder. It was one of Jared's favorite times of year. It wasn't like he loved being freezing cold, especially after his two years camping out, but his coat was naturally thicker than the cougars' and the summer could wear on him sometimes. Fall was always the best -- the sweet relief of a cool breeze when coming out of the heat, the air changing and becoming hickory scented with slowly rotting detritus, the soft crunch of the forest decaying under foot.

Fall always managed to seem a bit magical, more so than spring, and Jared could never say why. 

The ailure always mourned the passing of the sun, the _lessening_ of it as the days grew shorter and the nights longer, the moon taking its place. Jensen told him that it was the time of year when Saul'hrao moved away from them, paying them less attention as he turned to keeping the heavens in order. A necessary thing, but something missed all the same.

Jared never knew how to point out that it was just the angle of the Earth in relation to the sun as it revolved in space.

After all, it wasn't like Jensen didn't know that. The guy was well read, more so than Jared, and more than once had pointed out things about astronomy that Jared had never known, never been taught. Jensen was no ignorant backwoods guy, not by any stretch of the imagination, so it wasn't like he was unaware.

The way the ailure spoke of their myths was less like religion and more like truth, and at first Jared had just enjoyed the stories. These days, though, he wondered if it wasn't something missing from him, something he didn't have because of being human raised, that he couldn't _feel_ the turning of the seasons like they could. Sure, he had sense memories of the fall, of kicking the leaves while trick-or-treating, running from house to house in his ridiculous big pumpkin costume, bucket banging at his knees, and memories of Thanksgiving and their parents working away in the kitchen together -- Dad always on turkey duty, Mom always on dessert. He remembered him and his brothers raking the leaves up and sneaking up behind each other to stuff them down one another's shirts, their dad on the porch smoking one of his rare cigars, the scent hot and smoky in the cool air.

Yeah, he had his memories, just like anyone else, but it was different, for the ailure.

They seemed to sense the Earth moving. Like it was talking to them, like they had some older instinct that Jared was lacking, and it wasn't some kind of cultural divide or him romanticizing or some crap. He wasn't thinking of them as some mystical other, but noticing, instead, something real. Something true.

And something that made him feel a twinge inside, like it should belong to him too.

Or maybe like it already did.

 _'You doing okay?'_ Jared asked, shaking himself from his thoughts as he glanced over to check on Cole. The other fertile was walking by himself now, just to Jared's side but not as much leaned up against him, a little calmer now that they were out of the Cove and on their own. 

_'Yeah, it's--... You were right. Getting out...it was a good idea.'_ Cole smiled over at him, his body seeming less tense, less wound up with frustration that had really only been one part heat to three parts cabin fever. 

_'Yeah, well. You'll learn:_ all _my ideas are good ideas,'_ he responded with a proud smirk, hefting his head up, and he expected a snort from Brutus or some other noise of doubt, and Jared glanced back when none came. The beta was still, head cocked and listening.

 _'What're you--'_ Jared started, but Brutus immediately _'shh'_ ed him. Jared glanced at Cole, then back at Brutus with thin amusement.

 _'Did you hear that?'_ the beta asked, and Jared gave him an exasperated look.

 _'Oh_ c'mon, _dude. We're out in the middle of the woods. Take it down a notch-- Defcon one, or whatever.'_ He paused. _'Wait. Defcon five. Defcon one is launch all nukes.'_

 _'Hush!'_ Brutus scolded, and Jared was about to go off on the guy for talking to him like he was a kid when he _did_ hear it. The crackle of crunching leaves under weight, and it wasn't like the forest wasn't full of animals -- Jared knew that. There was plenty of life out here to make noise, but even so, as he turned back around to look forward, he felt the fur running down the back of his neck begin to rise.

From just under the branches of a pine tree, low and heavy with needles, Jared saw a head emerging into the clearing, the light of a last quarter moon not brilliant, but more than bright enough out here to make out the shape of an ailure. And then a second ailure, to the right of the first.

An the light was more than bright enough to illuminate the pale long fangs that speared from out under their lips and what the fuck, what the _ever living_ fuck! Jared had _told_ his brothers to stay away. He'd told them to just keep their heads down and wait for this to pass. Everything had been going _fine._

And Jared was just about to give them a piece of his mind when a third one slunk out to the left of the first, and wait. That wasn't right. There were three of them, all sabers, and that wasn't possible. There were only three sabers left in the world, and Jared was one of them, and it was only then, in his confusion, that he looked closer, close enough to see how much bigger these cats were than his brothers. How their coats weren't the same colors. How their stripes, so very similar, so very nearly the same, weren't quite. 

It was only then that he saw how dirty they were, frills long and a mess with dirt and leaves, their ears scarred and notched like an alley cat that had been in too many fights. Only then that he could see their eyes, _wrong_ and nothing like his brothers -- not bright, clear eyes but filmy, hazy, wet around the edges with mucus and cloudy with cataracts.

They weren't his brothers.

Jared's head drew back and up as if slapped, shock running through him like lightening, his eyes staring wide and unblinking.

They were sabers. 

They were sabers and they weren't his brothers at all.


	8. Chapter 8

Brutus had had a lot of plans for his life. 

When he was small, he'd pretended to be alpha, just like most of the other dominant cubs. The others wouldn't play along though -- he was 'too small' to be a believable alpha in their games, and always got relegated to 'fourth beta in charge' or something equally insignificant. He would proudly claim that his grandfather had been an alpha, but no one listened. 

After all, it was Brutus's cousin, ten years older than him and bigger and stronger by far that everyone was watching. That everyone was waiting for. It was Jensen that was always destined to be alpha, and no one ever let Brutus forget that.

Jensen was often around in Brutus's childhood. Even though he was much older than Brutus, the two of them had always gotten along. Their mothers were sisters, and close to one another, and Brutus remembered being brought to spend his time with his aunt's litter and other cubs from the pride, but it was Jensen he wanted to play with, Jensen he followed around. And Jensen, who could have easily out paced him and left him behind, easily told him to go away and leave Jensen alone, had always had patience for him. Had helped to teach him how to dig up voles and rats, and one time carried him up the tallest tree on the mountain near pride ground, so that the two of them could look out and see all the way to where the earth ended.

Brutus knew that he wanted to be just like Jensen when he grew up, and when Jensen wanted to be alpha, Brutus wanted to be alpha too. No one took him seriously, though.

He had his plans, though, and the summer after Jedediah'hrao's death, even though Brutus was only seventeen, he'd considered joining in the trials, despite the fact that he was far too young. He wanted to prove to them that he wasn't too small. That he had the same fire in him that Jensen did. Their grandfather's fire.

And it wasn't his mother, or his aunt, or anyone else that convinced Brutus to stop.

It was his cousin, bloody and shaking and victorious -- his childhood idol and friend, who'd never been mean or cruel for all his strength, who'd never told Brutus that he was too small, never told Brutus that he couldn't, he shouldn't, he wouldn't be able to.

It was then that his plans had changed. He wasn't going to prove himself to all the ones who didn't believe in him. He was going to prove himself to the one who _had,_ and that was more important. He wasn't going to be an alpha just like Jensen. Instead, he was going to become a beta, become a _captain_ one day and stand strong at his cousin's side. He was going to be loyal and good, a protector of his pride and never underestimated.

Until the day that very same cousin came to him and asked him to guard his then pregnant mate.

And all of Brutus's plans changed for a second time.

He'd had all these ideas of what his life was going to be, who he was going to be, and none of them had included being the guard to a regna. To be what he considered a glorified babysitter. Sure, he supposed there was nothing really wrong with it. The regna was _the land_ \-- was the core of a pride, and there was a certain dignity in protecting them.

Except Brutus didn't _want_ dignity. He wanted to fight, hard and vicious. He wanted to be a warrior as fine as Thaylil, as fine as Duah. He wanted to be seen as strong, and he didn't care about having a fine, shining coat or carefully cleaned paws. He would fight in the mud or the rain, fight until he was riddled with old scars, just to prove to anyone looking at him that he was nothing to be mocked or looked over.

But he'd sworn to have his cousin's back and to be his loyal second, and a big part of that was actually listening to and obeying his orders. It meant that Brutus would actually have to put the needs of his alpha and his pride before himself. To give up his own dreams to fulfill that role he'd always wanted, the role that came in a completely different form than he'd ever expected: a defender of pride and home. A servant to his people.

And it was through that that he got Jared.

Brutus had been the regna's only guardian for three years now, and there wasn't a bit of it that was easy or simple. Even day to day was a trial, dealing with the human raised ailure's peculiar sense of humor or his somewhat persnickety nature. Jared was a fertile, and a sensitive one by nature, but he often conducted himself like a dominant, and would frequently get offended or angry if treated like a fertile. He'd misunderstand or misconstrue, or just get upset for the hell of it, and it hadn't helped that for the first few months of their working relationship Jared had been cub-heavy and moody to boot.

But he was, Brutus had grudgingly admitted, a good person.

And he made Jensen happy. Really, genuinely happy, in a way that Brutus had never seen before from his usually so stoic and calm cousin.

And maybe, after awhile, he made Brutus happy too.

Brutus's mother used to say that the alpha ruled the land, but the land, in turn, controlled the alpha. After all, without the land they would all die. It was the land that sustained them, the land that sheltered them. They worked with the land, toiled it and served it and it gave them life. The alpha was master of his domain, but it was the land that held the alpha's life in its hands.

The land, the _regna,_ was their lifegiver. Not their ruler, but instead, something different. Maybe, something more important. 

The heart of their pride.

And Brutus had never understood that until he'd put his ego down, pushed it aside to see, instead of his own needs, his own desires, the needs of his people. That what was needed wasn't a warrior, but a servant.

A loyal guardian.

He had never understood it fully, until it was all on the line.

\-----

Being guard to a regna had never seemed like that exciting a job. After all, a regna's guard mostly just followed them around and spent their time watching after their charge. The captain had pointed out to him that that was all the beta on patrol did really -- there hadn't been a threat to the pride in years.

But Brutus had brushed that off. After all, it was the _possibility_ of threat, the idea that he was protecting the pride against it which lured him.

It turned out, though, that when your regna was one of the last sabers in the world, the job was anything but boring.

And sometimes required one to get on a human plane and fly through the air -- a horrifying experience that Brutus didn't wish to repeat. 

He'd been to the other side of the country, something that most ailure, territorial and unlikely to leave their prides, ever did. He'd spoken to dozens of humans and passed among them, and he'd met more than one member from each of the eight clans, something he'd never even thought to dream of when he was younger. 

He'd never thought it'd be that exciting, but after the last few weeks, Brutus was ready to settle in for some good, boring, routine work. And he was taking the week of the fertile's estrus as a break.

 _'How long was I out?'_ he asked when he woke up and found the sky dark with twilight. He hadn't even remembered dozing off. He'd walked with Jared to the Cove just the night before and settled in where he always did -- at the entrance with Jeff, the two of them keeping watch while the fertile went through their spell.

 _'Almost ten hours,'_ the older beta replied, laying with his head up, paws out in front of him and his hind legs curled lazily to the side behind him. The very end of his tail was twitching and his eyes were slits, blinking calmly. Brutus groaned, stretching his legs far out in front of him and feeling every muscle lengthen and tense, back arching down as he pressed his hindquarters out.

_'Gods, I didn't intend to sleep that long.'_

_'You obviously needed the rest.'_

_'Nothing happened?'_ he asked, needing to check, even though Jeff had been doing this for years longer than him. Even though Jeff would never let anything bad happen to his fertiles.

 _'Nothing important. You_ can _rest, you know. There's only one way in or out of the Cove. They're safe.'_

 _'Mm,'_ Brutus grunted noncommittally, knowing that to be true but it didn't really matter to him. His job was to protect Jared, to obey and honor his regna(even if he bickered more than he honored, but that was Jared's fault for being so damned difficult), and he took his job seriously. Jeff just chuckled and rolled back against the ground, flopping out in the dust, laughing off Brutus's seriousness like so many others did. Good naturedly, but still.

Just because Jeff was lackadaisical in his tasks didn't mean Brutus was.

He yawned widely, shaking himself to finish waking up, and felt the not wholly unexpected jolt of lust as he breathed in the thick, tender scent coming out of the Cove walls. It was a sweet, almost flowery scent, but deeper, darker, muskier, and it made him want to parade himself like a fool for a chance to get close to it. No dominant out of their teenaged years would be so easily led around by their dick, give in to the allure of the spell, but that didn't mean that it didn't effect them. It wasn't a mindless thing, a complete devolvement into their more animal instincts, but that didn't mean that it didn't make Brutus a little antsy, his body gearing up to prove itself strong and beautiful for a fertile's appraising eyes.

Spending a week only a few feet away from thirty ripe fertiles was always a bit of a trial, and Brutus had done it six times now. It didn't get easier. He never knew how Jeff stayed so calm, so relaxed, like the scent didn't effect him at all. 

Brutus ended up padding around the slope of the mountain, just outside the Cove, half to stretch his muscles, half to shake off some of that pent up energy. He was just returning when Jared and another, smaller fertile were emerging from the rock, talking with Jeff.

 _'Yeah, we're fine. Just going for a stroll,'_ he heard Jared saying and quickened his pace to lope over. He knew perfectly well by now that if he wasn't there to _make_ Jared wait for him that his regna would just merrily trounce out into the woods alone, foolishly independent as he was.

 _'Not without me you're not,'_ Brutus asserted in as authoritative a tone as possible. Of course, Jared put up a fight and Brutus had to put his foot down, not at all prepared to let his charge go gamboling out into the greenery by himself, especially while in heat, and especially less than a week after so many strangers had been on pride ground. Brutus had been cubsitting with the alpha and regna's children the night of the party, but he'd heard that more than one of the strangers had suggested that Jared go home with them, and no matter how many times Jensen told him that their guests were honored and respected, Brutus didn't trust them.

Brutus didn't trust anyone. That was a part of always being ready.

Jared capitulated eventually, of course, putting up less of a fight than he might of, a couple of years ago. They'd developed enough of a rapport that they managed to work, and Brutus had gotten more used to being disrespectful if he had to. The hain had his own mind, and three years ago Brutus had been too caught up in protocol to challenge that. These days, Brutus was less worried about butting heads.

He softened, though, when he saw the smaller fertile(Cole, his mind supplied, making out more scent than sight in the night) shy away from him, clearly nervous about being around such a boisterous dominant. Brutus had never been one for physical affection -- he found it all very unnecessary, he was no cub after all -- but he bumped his nose against the young one's flank as they walked, reassuring him that he was safe. Cole glanced back at him and seemed to relax.

Brutus was all about asserting his presence, about making others take things as seriously as he did, but he had no forgiveness for any dominant who would willfully menace a fertile, especially one so young.

It just meant that now Brutus had two in his care, walking through the woods. Two fertiles he would bring home safe and sound and tuck back into their Cove. 

It was his duty, his honor to fulfill.

The others would mock him for treating babysitting two fertiles _going on a walk_ like some important mission, but Brutus had never changed his ways, no matter how often his family rolled his eyes at him or the other betas chuckled. 

He kept an eye on his two charges, ears flicking around as he listened to the errant noises of the forest at night, owls hooting on their roosts and mice and other varmints coming out of their burrows to forage for food. The cool air was hardening the trees, and as their leaves fell so did their twigs and branches, landing against beds of dead leaves and seeds for next year's growth. It was quiet, and peaceful, only the sound of Cole and Jared's soft conversation an interruption in his head as he padded along behind them, moving deep into the Blue Ridge, around the curve of the mountains and down the slope from their home, into the valley.

They were far away from the Cove, an hour's walk at least, when a strange scent shifted on the winds and Brutus perked his head up.

He breathed in deep, trying to catch it again, but all he got was the overpowering smell of the two fertiles in heat, too strong to be overcome. It made his head feel a little cloudy for a moment, and he shook himself, sharp eyes glancing around the darkness and seeing nothing. Then there was a single crack, wood being snapped, and his ears shot forward, going stone still, braced and listening.

 _'What're you--'_ Jared's voice was directed at him, breaking his concentration.

 _'Shh!'_ he replied immediately, straining to hear. There was nothing. Only the silence, a living, breathing silence that seemed to be all around them, watching them. _'Did you hear that?'_ he asked finally, glancing only briefly at the other two.

Instead of replying with a normal answer, Jared began babbling human at him again, and while their conversation wasn't something out loud, wasn't a _noise,_ really, it still served the same cover, making it difficult to hear.

 _'Hush!'_ he said again, heart rate picking up with adrenaline, and he knew Jared was looking at him with that familiar exasperation, never taking anything seriously, but Brutus didn't care. Jared could be as exasperated he wanted, so long as he was also safe.

For a moment, for a second, Brutus entertained the notion that it was nothing, just some animal in the wood. Just his mind playing tricks on him in the night and he'd been too long gone from the forest, too long unexposed to its errant sounds and scents, when there was another, clearer, snapping of a twig, and even Jared's head whipped around at that.

It wasn't nothing.

Every hackle on Brutus's body went up when he saw ailure emerging from the brush, and he felt both his fore and hindfrill lift and bristle, lips coming up to bare fangs, as strangers with strange scents came upon them.

When strangers came near _his_ regna, _his_ charges.

Brutus darted forward, shoving between the newcomers and the two fertiles, and he felt Jared stumble back, but he never looked away. He only had a second for shock when he saw the stranger's fangs, when he realized just what they were and felt his whole chest contract, every instinct in him telling him to back off, to give honor to children of Thaylil and Yrsa, to the blessed children of Saul'hrao.

Every instinct but one.

_Protect the regna._

_'Who are you?'_ he demanded, lips still curled, claws unsheathed.

 _'My my,'_ came the strange voice in his head, soft and even, almost smoky. _'Look at the little cat we have here.'_

Brutus knew the reply came from the one in the center, from the biggest one -- a cat almost twice Brutus's size. A cat even bigger than Jeffrey, and bound with muscle. Filthy and dirty as they seemed, scarred as they were, there was no weakness there, and Brutus could see that easily. All three of them looked more than capable of defending themselves, even against the betas of Brutus's pride.

...the betas.

Brutus felt cold rush through him that even though they were far out from pride ground, they were still _well_ within the boundaries of the hunting ground. Well within the circuits of the patrols. Which meant that these three got by the patrol. Got through it somehow. 

And he didn't want to think about that too deeply.

 _'Who are you?'_ he demanded again. _'What are you doing here?'_

 _'We heard the news,'_ the central saber replied again, looking him in the eye. The beast's eyes were mottled and cloudy, but not with age -- he was no young cat, to be sure, but he was far from enfeebled. Still fit, still strong, and there was no way he was over fifty. No way he was old enough to have eyes that greyed out. _'Heard that one of ours was hiding away in the east. So we came.'_

The saber turned his gaze up, looking over Brutus and behind him. Brutus didn't have to turn to see that the saber was looking at Jared.

 _'Well you can go over to our pride ground and introduce yourself to our alpha if you want to see him. I don't care who you are, you won't be talking to our regna out here and during Urrou's Spell. You can wait for it to pass.'_ Brutus did his best to be politic, to keep from going too hard too fast, but it wasn't easy. Everything about these three set him off, hit him the wrong way, and he glanced to the side when he saw one of them laughing, its head moving strange and jerky as it gnashed its teeth at nothing.

He swallowed and looked back to the leader.

 _'Regna, is it?'_ the leader asked, a hint of something in his voice, strange and curling. _'I suppose I should have guessed, given your heritage.'_

 _'Who the hell are you?'_ Jared asked in response, sounding more mystified than anything. He sounded thrown off, lost almost, and Brutus could understand why. Jared had lived his whole life knowing there were only three sabers in the world and he was one of them -- Brutus had lived all of his knowing there were none, until one was given to him to safeguard. 

Now he was facing off against three more, but their bloodline didn't matter to him. Jared was his regna, his ward, and Brutus had sworn to defend him. Not to Jensen, not to himself, but to the gods themselves.

 _'We're your pride. And we've come to take you home.'_ The leader's voice was smooth and cold and Brutus roared his opposition, every fur standing on end, and they hadn't done anything yet, but already they'd gone too far. Brutus just wanted them gone.

 _'Get out of here. You go now or I'll make you regret it, do you hear me?'_ he threatened, lips curled high enough to bare even his gums. _'You shouldn't be around two fertiles in heat and you're not taking Jared'hain anywhere, I don't care_ who _you are.'_

 _'Oh?'_ the leader asked as he moved forward, ducking under a low hanging branch and moving into the wan moonlight. _'And who are you, pathetic little beta, to tell me what I should or shouldn't do? What is my_ right.'

The movement was flash quick and too fast for Brutus to follow, let alone dodge. He stumbled to the side with three fresh claw marks in his shoulder and slammed his paws into the ground to hold himself up. He heard Jared yell an objection, bounding forward and Brutus's head snapped back to look at him.

 _'Don't!'_ he called, looking at his regna. Jared stopped but looked baffled -- confused and worried and hurt, and he was looking at Brutus's shoulder, slowly spilling red. 

_'Who are you to deny me what is mine?'_ the leader continued, and the fear in Brutus's belly coalesced into something hard and heavy, something with no room for doubt. _'What has been promised me.'_

 _'Jared,'_ he said, using the saber's name without the honorific for once, for the first time in three years. _'Run.'_

_'No--'_

_'Jared!'_

_'I'm not going to_ leave _you,'_ his regna defended, baring his teeth, proud and beautiful, and Brutus knew that. For all he complained, he knew that. He knew just how special this fertile was, beyond his bloodline. Jared wasn't just a saber, wasn't just some holy symbol. He was someone who wouldn't run and leave someone he cared about. 

He was a fertile, and raised by humans, but he had the heart of a dominant.

 _'That won't be happening,'_ the leader broke in, his head raised high as he stepped forward. _'We came here for our pride, our fertile, and I'm afraid we won't be leaving here without him.'_

 _'And look, Gedeon,'_ the one to the right of the leader, a female dominant, spoke up. _'He brought a little bonus.'_

The leader chuckled and leaned in, sniffing at the air around Cole, and the small fertile backed up, hunkering down to the ground, his belly fur brushing the dirt. The leader's lips spread thin and grim.

 _'Well, doesn't this one smell tasty. All ready to go there, aren't you?'_ he asked and Brutus didn't hesitate: he slashed, claws missing as the saber reared back, and Brutus whirled back to his regna.

'Please. _You have to go, and you have to take Cole.'_ He could see the younger fertile shaking behind Jared's feet, crouched and terrified. He didn't want to think about it. He didn't even want the mental image in his _head_ \-- what these monsters would do if they took these fertile from the pride. It sickened him.

For just a second, Jared looked at him, the two of them watching each other, and he hoped his regna could see it in his eyes -- this was the moment he was put here for. This was what the gods always intended him to do.

Brutus had had a lot of plans for his life.

But this was the only one that mattered.

He leapt forward, his roar as loud as he could make it, even though there was little hope of it being heard by Jeff or anyone else, as far out as they were. His paws were spread and mouth gaping and the leader received him like he was an expected guest, bodies colliding with yowls and claws, sharp points slashing against his belly. There were three of the sabers and one of him, though, and this would be no fight he could just concentrate his efforts on. He pushed hard with his back legs to escape the saber's fangs and whirled on his other attacker. She hissed, mouth cavernous and teeth like daggers, but he knew they were fragile.

Sabers never used their teeth to attack. Only to kill once their prey was grounded.

Brutus ducked in, headed under her fangs and straight for her throat, but was knocked off balance by the swipe of a paw across his back, the weight of it knocking him sideways, and his mouth latched to the front of her shoulder instead of her neck. He'd take it, though. He heard her scream in pain and just tightened his jaws, hearing a scuffle behind him but unable to turn his attention to it.

Jared had run. He knew that much. He'd seen it in his friend's eyes.

Jared knew that he couldn't risk Cole, and Brutus knew that the friend he trusted, the friend he'd looked after for three years, would never risk someone else.

He had to see though, had to check, and he already felt the other dominant under his teeth struggling to make her next attack. He was small and used to being small, and that meant speed. That meant using his opponents weight against them. Usually, that worked. 

He let go and slid forward, into, rather than away from, the saber, trying to slip around her and to the other side. He screeched in surprise when he felt her claws slip deep into his flank, tearing skin and muscle and flesh, splattering the ground with blood as he yanked away. He was panting, staring at the three of them, eyes flashing from one to the other. 

They were big _and_ fast. 

He didn't have the weight advantage nor the speed advantage nor the advantage of numbers.

His tongue, red and bloody was curled in his panting mouth, letting out the occasional hiss, the warning to stay back, even as all three crept forward, hissing and growling by turns. He bared his teeth, showing every ounce of aggression, and felt absolutely no desire to run at all.

He glanced quickly to the side and saw both Jared and Cole stopped at the edge of the clearing. They'd obviously tried to run, tried to do as Brutus commanded, but no, _no,_ there was a fourth. There was a fourth saber there with them, blocking their exit, and Brutus felt despair run through him.

Jared was standing over Cole, hissing violently, and Brutus turned to go to him before he saw Jared leap, saw his regna take on a dominant bigger and stronger than him without a hint of hesitance, two bodies locked in struggle, both fighting for control as their paws stirred the dust between them. He saw Cole locked and frozen, and Brutus felt like wailing in grief until he saw the young fertile jolt and stir. The cub(gods, he was just a cub, still just a _baby,_ Brutus couldn't let them do this to him) moved in halting little jerks and then startled, turning around and dashing into the woods, tail flying as he ran like the dark wind itself was chasing him.

Brutus didn't have another moment to think about it though, because a great weight impacted his side, throwing him to the ground, and his shoulder bounced off a rock. He felt something in him break painfully, felt his chest crushed by the weight on him, over him, and he turned his head from the foul smell coming from the saber's mouth -- fetid and rotten like death, the edges of his fangs yellow with decay and his gums red with blood.

The other dominant was scrambling, powerful but inelegant, its movements shaky and wild as it tried to bite and claw, saliva splattering over Brutus's coat. Brutus had no leverage where he was, pinned to the ground, but he didn't care.

He'd been small all of his life -- but that had never mattered to him.

He surged up, teeth scoring, snapping good and deep into the side of the monster's neck and he clawed, raked at any flesh he could find. He couldn't breath, could barely move, but he snapped, again and again, tearing at skin until it crumbled in his mouth like ground meat and the saber foolishly tore itself away, leaving a chunk of itself dangling in Brutus's mouth as he got to his feet.

Brutus was breathing hard, struggling for it, but he was grinning, mouth open and tongue lolling as a flap of skin and grizzle flopped to the ground, laying there as a trophy at Brutus's feet. He looked at the blood flowing freely down the brute's side, listened to it whining and stumbling about, and Brutus's own aches and pains felt small and distant. Meaningless things.

He may have been a 'pathetic little beta,' but that didn't mean that he was weak.

He never even saw the bite that took his throat, only felt it when his breath went short, larynx crushed almost immediately in the jaws of a predator, and those great fangs sunk in, sunk through, and his whole body went shaky and unresponsive.

His head was held up by the mass of the one below him, forcing him to look up at the sky, up at the moon, less than half open now and turned away. He could make out the stars that ripped through the length of the heavens and ran across it like footprints, a long, bright path, that they said would lead the way home. A path across the sky run by so many before him.

Then the pressure holding him up was gone, and the leader tore himself away, mouth and fangs deep red in the darkness and eyes unmoved, uncaring, and Brutus dropped to the ground. He'd landed killing blows before. He remembered being a hunter, before he'd taken his calling to become a beta. He'd chased deer and rabbits and dug up voles. He remembered the feeling of leaping on to a running creature's back and bringing it down, killing it with one snap of his jaws around its neck. He knew what it was like to land a killing blow, but not what it was like to take one. He'd never thought about it before. Never thought what it might be like.

His head hit the ground and he felt his lungs move, felt the muscles instinctively tighten and expand, seeking air, but nothing stirred in his nose or mouth, and he smacked his lips together, jaw working meaninglessly. He could feel the wet in his fur, could feel it soaking into him. Out of him.

And across the clearing he could see Jared, his regna, still fighting.

Brutus had never been more proud.

He had never felt so very full.

Cole was gone, fled the clearing and who knew how far away by now, and the four sabers were still here, held back by Brutus and Jared, and that was enough. Brutus knew he should want his charge to run, to escape, but in that moment, still and strangely quiet to his ears, only the very distant sounds of scuffling, he just watched. He watched the beauty of his friend, his friend who irritated him and frustrated him and was always trying to be so difficult, who was so obsessed with being human when he _wasn't_ and so obsessed with being independent when he didn't have to be, a friend that Brutus loved, in his own prickly way.

Brutus tried to swallow, but his tongue only twitched, the surface of it scattered with dirt as his mouth hung open.

There was nothing more he could do for Jared. He'd done everything he could. Now, he could only lie there and hope, believe, as the strength was leeched from his body and into the ground, into the earth, that the gods wouldn't turn away from such a thing. The world wouldn't give them back the Dawnbringers only to take them away again.

It was too cruel.

But he didn't need to worry, not anymore. Not about this fertile that would fight tooth and claw to protect his pride and himself. He didn't need to worry about Jared, even in the darkness, because in all the world, in all the world, in all the world...

When the darkness came, in all the world there was still one who could bring back the light.

He felt no fear, breath coming no more and chest going still and the flutter of those last weak pulses swimming through him, bright and sluggish, the feeling of the black washing over him. He felt no fear, as the world went softer, stranger, blurred in purples and silver, because he knew what he would see, the last thing he would see, as his eyes began to go lax, began to unfocus, was this.

Was his regna unwavering and undefeated, and there was nothing in the world he would rather see than this, no where in the world he would rather be than right here. He'd had a lot of plans for his life, but this had always been the most importa--


	9. Chapter 9

Jared had learned about the Yellowstone attack in fifth grade, taking diligent notes down on his wide ruled line paper, hand writing sloppy and legible only to him. 

He'd liked history. He'd like the way that everything came with a story and characters, with a narrative flow. He liked the way that everything interconnected. And hearing about the Yellowstone attack and the extinction of the saber werecats had been sad, sure, but no more sad that hearing about World War I or the Holocaust, or any of the other hundreds of strange and scary stories lurking in history's corners. It hadn't been significant, it hadn't been _personal,_ until two years later and all the secrets their parents had kept for thirteen years came spilling out and into their lives.

After that, it was all that Jared and his brothers could think about.

They'd checked out plenty of books from the library, all about werecats and the history humans had with them. The books were all from the human perspective and had none of the culture and mythology and politics that Jared had learned about since becoming part of a pride, but at the time they'd just wanted to learn all they could about the sabers, their people. The race of werecats that were gone from the earth, except for three young boys in Wyoming.

At least, so they had believed.

Jared supposed he shouldn't have been so surprised. After all, he and his brothers were alive even when no one else knew. It wasn't that much of a stretch to think that the same thing could have happened elsewhere.

But he'd spent so long, so _much_ of his life with the belief that they were alone, that they were singular, that his identity was tied up in it. He was one of the last, and it wasn't a huge deal to him, not like it was to the other ailure, to all the ones who'd come from across the globe to see him, but it was still just a part of himself that he held constant. A simple truth that had gone unquestioned.

It was shocking enough that for a few moments Jared had difficulty processing what was happening.

He saw the sabers emerge from the underbrush, one by one, pushing into the clearing and making Jared take a few uncertain steps back, his ears lowering as his body crouched, automatic submission in the face of fear and uncertainty.

Before he could say anything, though, before his mind could even make itself up, Brutus was dashing in between him and the strangers, the frill running up his neck and down his back almost a mohawk, stiff and straight and threatening.

The light wasn't bright, not bright enough to see much by, but Jared's eyes had long adjusted during the walk, and he could make out what poor condition these cats were in. Mangy and dirty, ears notched and muzzles scarred they looked like they'd had more than just a hard journey but rather a hard life, something more than merely recent. But they weren't weak, that much was clear.

They were all just as big as his brothers, two of them bigger, and when they moved their scruffy coats slid over well won muscles, bunching and binding beneath their skin. They looked like predators. They looked dangerous.

Jared was barely listening as the largest saber and Brutus began to exchange words, still too caught up in his own head and his own thoughts. He startled a little when he noticed that the saber in the middle, the one talking to Brutus, was wearing a necklace -- a scrappy cord of cloth draped around his thick neck with a tiny cat skull hanging at the center.

Jared shuddered. He remembered his own cubs, only a day out of his body and so small. He remembered holding them, blind and weak, struggling in his hands and warmed against his chest.

That was the size that their heads had been. Newborn.

 _'We heard the news,'_ the saber's voice interrupted Jared's morbid thoughts and caught his attention. _'Heard that one of ours was hiding away in the east. So we came.'_

Their eyes met then, the two of them looking at each other over Brutus's defensive back and Jared felt everything in him go still, world going soft, quiet -- cold. The frantic beat of his heart lowered, thumped steady and strange in his ears and the world shifted, moved, or he felt it move, for a second, before he lost the sensation, and Brutus's voice broke through the unnatural silence in his head, everything snapping back to normal.

 _'Well you can go over to our pride ground and introduce yourself to our alpha if you want to see him. I don't care who you are, you won't be talking to our regna out here and during Urrou's Spell. You can wait for it to pass.'_ Brutus was growling a little, despite his careful words, but neither Jared nor the saber were listening to him. The stranger dipped his head, quirking it slightly, as if Brutus and everything else was too small and inconsequential to notice.

And for a second, caught in seeing someone like him, someone from whatever past he had that he'd never known, Jared almost agreed.

 _'Regna, is it?'_ the saber asked, and Jared dipped his head, not in agreement but in preparation -- wariness. _'I suppose I should have guessed, given your heritage.'_

 _'Who the hell_ are _you?'_ Jared finally managed to get out, and even though the voice wasn't something out loud, it sounded hoarse and scratchy, pressed to speak. Jared wanted to know the answer to the question at the same time that he never wanted to hear it. He wanted to go back to a few minutes ago when the world made sense. When he wasn't completely lost and trying to find gravity again.

 _'We're your family. Your pride.'_ The reply, the words, sent a shock through Jared, and he heard Brutus roar, but all he could do was rear his own head back, breath stilling at the claim. It wasn't like Jensen, or Padmavati, both of whom's calm assurance and dominance stroked Jared the right way, calmed him and talked to him in some older tongue. This was like a hand running backwards through his fur, making him shiver and want to twist away.

This was something wrong. There was something wrong here -- more than merely what was on the surface. Jared didn't know what it was, or even how he knew, only that he did. Only that this was wrong and they had to get out of here.

Brutus was threatening the lead saber and Jared wanted to tell him not to, that it was the last thing in the world he should be doing, but his voice was still frozen and he was too late. The minute the words were uttered, Jared could see it in the stranger's eyes -- the way they lit with life that the rest of him didn't have, lit with violence and an old, righteous hunger.

Something hateful but deserved and Jared wanted to twist his head away, toss it like a willful horse until he could break whatever was holding him here.

 _'Oh?'_ the leader moved forward, more into the light of the clearing and Jared finally felt himself stepping back, stepping away, his body's every automatic instinct to keep his distance, the heat in him clamoring _danger, run, run_ and Cole's instinct to stay away from dominants during this time wasn't wrong, just focused on the wrong dominants. He glanced then to the younger fertile, and as he broke his gaze from what remained of his biological pride, he felt like himself again.

 _'Are you alright?'_ he murmured to Cole, needing to check, but the boy was too afraid, paralyzed with it, to speak.

 _'And who are you--'_ the stranger was talking to Brutus, voice cold and far too self assured, _'--tiny, insignificant little beta, to tell me what I should or shouldn't do? What is my_ right.'

And before Jared could issue a warning the stranger lashed out, claws striking flesh and Brutus bounded away as best he could but still keeping his body in between the fertiles and the newcomers. Jared jerked forward without thought, to check on his friend, to offer assistance, to fight, he didn't know, but he was halted by Brutus's sharp voice.

 _'Don't!'_ The beta was bleeding steadily from his shoulder, and the stranger's voice hissed like water against the rocks, the sea wearing away the mountain. The words were chilling but the sound was worse, and Jared shook his head, confused and afraid and worried, wanting to help Brutus, his entire human upbringing telling him to fight shoulder to shoulder, but the beta never looked away. Just looked in Jared's eyes and held his gaze and said:

_'Jared. Run.'_

_'No--'_

_'Jared!'_

_'I'm not going to_ leave _you,'_ he objected, baring his teeth in frustration and something like grief. He knew what would happen if he left. If he ran. Brutus would die.

Brutus was prepared to die for him. The stupid fool would put himself between Jared and danger for some misplaced sense of honor, and what good was honor if you were _dead?_ Jared couldn't stand it. He couldn't stand the thought.

 _'That won't be happening,'_ the stranger's voice interrupted them. _'We came here for our pride,_ our _fertile, and I'm afraid we won't be leaving here without him.'_

Jared felt his lips pull taut, that same claim like ice on his skin, and he wanted to shake it off.

 _'And look, Gedeon.'_ Another one of the sabers spoke up, a female by the sound of it, her eyes turning to her leader. _'He brought a little bonus.'_

She indicated Cole then, and Jared felt sickness roil through him, moving forward to do something, say something, but before he could the stranger -- Gedeon -- stepped around him with a strange grace for one so big with eyes so clouded.

 _'Well, doesn't this one smell tasty,'_ he said, sniffing at Cole and the boy backed up, eyes wide and terrified, crouching down and trying to get away from the threat that every instinct in him must have been screaming about. _'All ready to go there, aren't you?'_

Jared roared at the words, at the implication, at anyone who would say such things to a _kid,_ but his was drowned out by Brutus. The cougar had leapt at Gedeon with anger written across the scowl of his face, tight and curled up with that rage. He slashed one paw out in front of him, but Gedeon avoided it. For a second Jared thought an all out fight was going to break out. Instead Brutus whirled around to look back at him, eyes begging.

'Please. _You have to go, and you have to take Cole.'_

The plea was so uncharacteristic of the cat that Jared had gotten to know over three years -- his friend and confidant, even if Jared often denied it. The guide who'd kept his post at Jared's side through thick and thin and had proven himself to be so loyal: so stubborn and self-important and loyal. Jared looked at Brutus and Brutus looked at him, and it was over in less than a handful of seconds, but Jared felt every single one.

And he hoped that Brutus could see it in his eyes: that they had always been friends, always been family.

That it killed Jared to leave him behind now, knowing everything he would lose.

And then Brutus was flying forward, teeth and claws bared and Jared didn't watch to see the collision of bodies, just turned immediately to herd the younger fertile, pressing his body against Cole's and shoving him.

 _'Go, go damn you!'_ he yelled, desperation hedging his voice as the terrified kid huddled and jerked his way across the ground, to the other end of the clearing, back towards home and away-- god, away from Brutus.

They were almost into the treeline, Cole's shaky paws beginning to support him a little more when the brush before them shook, and for a fleeting second Jared felt hope soar through him: Jeff had heard them. Somehow, someway, across the forest, Jeff had heard them and gotten to them. It didn't make sense, but it was impossible not to cling to, until the body pushed its way out of the shadows and the moonlight fell over two long fangs. 

Cole let out a grieved wail and Jared's heart crashed in his chest, painful and filled with despair.

 _'Sorry there, my sweets,'_ the dominant said, lips quirking up. _'Can't let you creep away while the boss man is working his magic.'_

 _'God,'_ Jared moaned, wanting to cry. Wanting to pound his fists against the ground. _'Who_ are _you people? What is_ wrong _with you?'_

 _'My name is Dmitri,'_ the other saber answered, so unexpectedly friendly in the face of his blatant threat, his body blocking their escape and looming. _'And as for what's wrong with me... Oh, my pretty little thing, you don't even want to know the half of it.'_

 _'Please. Please let us go,'_ Jared tried, hoping to reach some better part of this creature, hoping there was even something left that could care. _'Cole's just a kid. We mean you no harm, and our pride could_ help _you--'_

_'Help us? Help us with what? All we needed was you.'_

_'Then let Cole go.'_

_'No.'_

_'Why_ not? _You just said you only came here for me!'_

 _'Because I want something to play with on the journey.'_ The saber smiled then, nothing malicious or mean about it -- genuine and true jovial warmth, and that...that just made it so much worse.

Because this person didn't see a thing wrong with what he was doing. He truly believed himself to be in the right.

Someone who didn't doubt for even a second that there could be a different way, and there was no talking someone like that out of anything. Jared stood there, stock still, eyes wide and full of something that was one part rage to three parts terror, and it was like looking up the barrel of a gun. It was like looking death in the face and knowing it wasn't coming for you, but coming for every single thing you'd ever touched. Every single thing you'd ever loved.

 _'Cole,'_ Jared said, voice simple and so strangely calm, and Jared didn't know where it came from. _'...you run. You run and you don't look back. Not even once. You run and you don't stop no matter what you hear.'_

The dominant started forward at that and Jared huddled over Cole, opening his mouth and crinkling his tongue in a hiss, stretched and violent, and before Dmitri could do anything else, Jared threw his whole weight at the other saber. He felt them twist, bodies hitting each other like they were made of stone as they tumbled against the ground, paws moving frantically and so fast, so _fucking_ fast, like Jared couldn't even believe.

He'd never been in a fight for his life before, and he had no idea what to do. His brothers had tried to teach him to fight over and over again, and even their dubious successes had all been in human form. None of them had ever thought they'd be fighting with another cat. And whatever tussles he'd been in had been little more than kids picking on each other -- nothing like this. Nothing like fangs and claws and scrambling in the dust, bodies locked in mortal struggle, jaws seeking throats.

Or, at least, Jared's was.

He snapped ineffectually at an opponent far bigger and far more used to violence than he, far fitter and stronger and toughened against the world. It didn't take him more than a few moments to realize that as hard as he was struggling to harm Dmitri, Dmitri was doing nothing more than snarling at him and restraining him, until Jared noticed that he was pinned, his flailing ineffectual and little more than an inconvenience to the more experienced fighter.

In fact, Dmitri was laughing at him -- and that burned hard at Jared's anger, hit his pride in a way that few things did. He was used to being the class clown, the less noticed brother, used to not having to need pride and not minding embarrassing himself to make someone else smile. But this, to have this monster laughing at him while he fought with every inch of himself...

He roared and lashed out, claws scoring but barely, ripping open three thin red lines on the dominant's cheek and he cuffed Jared's head hard -- no claws, but the blow powerful enough to make the world grey out for a moment, Jared's vision spinning. When he shook himself, trying to clear his head, he saw that Dmitri had backed off of him and was looking around, searching for something.

For Cole. For Cole, who was nowhere in sight, and Jared couldn't even be bothered to try and hold in the burst of laughter at that.

 _'You stupid little_ whore!' Dmitri snarled, real anger replacing the jovial smile and he lifted a paw, claws out this time and Jared braced himself, waiting for the hit.

 _'Dmitri,'_ Gedeon's voice cut throw, calm but sharp in command, and the saber over Jared froze. _'I hardly think that's necessary.'_

Dmitri stared down at Jared for a long moment, then slowly lowered his paw, though the anger in his eyes didn't fade. He stepped back slowly, one paw at a time, and Jared slowly rose to his feet, shaking himself. He felt bruised and a little roughed up, but nothing worse than that. 

_'You must forgive my brother,'_ Gedeon said as he walked up to them, looking at Jared. _'He is rare to anger but can get carried away when you manage to get him there.'_

 _'Brutus,'_ was all Jared could say, looking beyond Gedeon, ignoring as best he could the blood stained jaws and blood stained coat and-- and--

And there.

There on the other side of the clearing was a body, tan and almost completely clear of marks, only the dark line of the frill running down his back. Jared could see much from where he was, from the angle, only the slope of Brutus's back. Only the way he didn't move. The way he didn't move at all and Jared choked, felt the first sob come up unbidden before he swallowed down the rest, unwilling to grieve in front of Brutus's murderers.

His friend wouldn't want that.

Wouldn't want them to have the satisfaction.

Jared took a deep breath, feeling the air rush in cold and shaky and hollow him out, feeling like every bone in his body was uncertain and unsteady. Feeling like there was no way he could lift his head again and not break apart into a thousand pieces.

When he did, he didn't know where he found the strength, but he held on to the image of Brutus in his head and did everything he could to imitate it as he stared straight at Gedeon.

The saber dominant looked back at him without challenge or fear, just looked, like Jared wasn't even of consequence, before he looked over at the other three.

 _'Dmitri. I want you and Varushka to go and bring back that little cougar bit. He can't be too far,'_ he ordered, and Jared's barely clung to calm began to fall apart. He couldn't let them get to Cole. They'd somehow gotten through the patrol -- and whether they'd killed them or just snuck through, either way said something about their abilities. They'd killed Brutus. There was no doubt in Jared's mind that they'd be able to catch up, no matter the head start that Cole had.

There was no way the kid would be any match for them. They'd either tear him apart or drag him back here. Back here to be brutalized and Jared choked on the bile. He'd brought Cole out here to give the boy some peace, some sense of calm -- to give him something better than Jared's first heat. Jared couldn't just let something like this happen to him.

He remembered Jensen coming home late at night after the rainstorms, and he remembered Jensen getting up early every morning during the blizzard to make sure that every family, every cub was safe. He remembered Jensen spending hours bent over his desk, to hours spent talking with Misha or the rest of the betas, hours spent cataloguing or writing lists or taking counts, remembered all those trips down into town and how every time, every time Jared told him to rest or relax or just let something go, Jensen would just respond: _I cannot. I am alpha._

Before coming here Jared would have thought that being alpha meant having privileges, being the one in power. The one with all the perks. But Jensen had proved something quite different: that his place of dominance over the pride made him responsible for the pride, and it wasn't they who served him, but he who served them.

And Jared might not have been alpha, but he _was_ regna -- mate to an alpha and this was _his_ home, _his_ pride.

He was regna here, responsible for his pride and that meant Cole. 

Responsible for Cole, who Brutus had died to help protect, and there was no way in the world that Jared was going to let that be in vain.

 _'Wait,'_ he said, as the two sabers that Gedeon had ordered started forward. All eyes swung to him. He stumbled for a second, then lifted his head and held it firm. _'I will go with you. I'll go with you willingly, without fighting -- but only if you agree to let the cub go.'_

He looked at them all, then at Gedeon, trying to keep his own expression neutral, despite every horrible feeling churning and battering within him, every fear and anxiety, every piece of anger and hate, and at the heart of it all the wrenching grief of loss. Jared clenched his jaw, because no matter what he felt, he wasn't going to let it give him away. He wasn't going to risk Cole, not for anything.

 _'Willingly?'_ Gedeon asked, quirking his head as he took a step forward, looking at Jared. _'Well, you certainly don't have a_ choice. _But I do suppose it would be easier to get moving if we didn't have to drag you, and the night is only so long...'_

 _'Geds,'_ Dmitri said, started, but the other cat cut him off.

 _'No. It's just a cougar. We've taken cougars before and we'll take them again. This is more important. I care little for the cub. He was only a dalliance -- this is what we came here for. What father told us of years ago. This is what matters, Dmitri.'_ He looked towards the other two -- the female dominant and the other one, the male that didn't speak, who looked around with too wide eyes that never seemed to focus on any one thing in particular. _'That goes for everyone. We've waited too long and worked too hard to throw it all away on some ripe smelling fertile. If..._ Jared _here says that he will come with us without throwing a tantrum, it will be worth the price.'_ He turned back to Jared then, the two of them making eye contact. _'I_ do _have your word, don't I? We let the little thing go, you come with us. No fights, no attempts to run away. No..._ inconveniences.'

Jared swallowed hard, hating the idea, hating all of it, enough that his nose almost wrinkled in disgust. He wanted to spit out his rejection, wanted to tell this bastard to go to hell and never come back. He wanted to run, to fight, to _die_ rather than give in, but he thought of Cole, how the kid had been shaking, how the kid had been in his care. How this was as much his right as it was Jensen's -- to protect his pride.

He lifted his head until his neck almost hurt, but he held his jaw firm.

_'I agree.'_

_'Done,'_ Gedeon said immediately and without hesitance. _'Then let's not waste any more time. We have seven hours until sunrise, my loves. Let's not waste them.'_

Jared stood stock still as the other sabers moved around him, and this couldn't be his life. Things had seemed crazy before with dozens of ailure coming from all corners of the globe to see him. He'd felt, then, like his life had been turned upside down, like things were out of control. 

He'd had no idea.

It had nothing on walking past Brutus's body, placing each paw purposefully in front of the last, eyes set straight and head high, holding his breath to keep it all inside. He couldn't dare turn his head to look and see, to take in what it must look like. To see Brutus as anything other than the living, breathing, talking, thinking person he knew. He couldn't stand the thought of him as anything less than that, and the tears pricked at his eyes.

He refused to let them fall though.

Brutus would never forgive him for crying in front of these brutes, these bastards, and Jared wouldn't give them the satisfaction. His grief for Brutus was his and his alone and he wouldn't give them a piece of it. He wouldn't shame Brutus's memory by giving a part of it away to people like this. It wasn't theirs. They couldn't have it.

Jared wouldn't shame his pride by hanging his head now. He walked by Gedeon's smiling face and he held his head stiff and forward.

He was regna here and his grief would come only in the quiet, when no one else was watching.


	10. Chapter 10

It was late.

Jensen was aware of this. 

His cubs were already upstairs and asleep, put down to bed hours ago and Jensen knew he should probably be up there with them, taking advantage of the quiet of heat to get some rest. The pride always lulled when the fertiles went away and it was one of those rare times when Jensen genuinely didn't have anything to be doing -- except possibly sleeping.

"Another," Nicki urged, thrusting the half empty jar of moonshine at him.

"No," he replied, waving his hand hazily. 

"Oh c'mon, the missus is gone, have a little fun," his ex assured him, always the bad influence. She'd always been the one to encourage him to do things he shouldn't, and he supposed that was exactly how they'd ended up together. He'd _known_ that sleeping with his patrol partner could only lead to misfortune, but Nicki was always so good at talking him into things.

Thankfully, she had also always been pretty good about saving him from the trouble she'd get him into.

He glanced at the moonshine in her hand and sighed, holding his glass out as the hunter gleefully poured him another. She did the same to her own and the two of them slammed it back at the same time. 

Jensen let himself flop forward, forehead coming to rest against the wooden table before him even as he heard Nicki pouring herself some more.

"I hate going to bed alone," he mumbled.

"Whiner."

"I hate when they're in season."

"No you don't. No dominant with a nose hates heat week."

"But I hate them being gone," he pointed out, turning his head to look out the window of the mainhouse. From this angle he could see little more than the sky, but he knew what he would see if he got up -- dominants ambling around aimlessly, wandering from cabin to cabin to keep each other amused while their mates or family were gone. Even though the fertile compromised only a quarter of their pride, their absence was still felt, even amongst dominants who'd mated together.

The land felt duller, emptier, without the presence of the fertile. Without the serenity they brought with them. Like the center, the soul of their pride was missing.

"You wouldn't hate it so much if you didn't lay around moaning about it the whole time. C'mon," she urged. "Drink."

"Nicki." 

"Booze, Jensen. It's the only way."

"Ugh, no. I'm boozed enough. And unlike you, I have to be _alpha_ in the morning." He sighed and righted his head, chin resting on the wood as he looked out at the darkened space of the mainhouse. There were several other hunters and some betas lounging about, everyone sipping on moonshine and talking amongst themselves. Pride ground was always subdued, this week, and it felt good to keep each other company. Of course, the 'party' they'd intended ended up a melancholy affair, as always.

"Spoil sport," the hunter next to him shrugged, drinking straight from the jar.

"Where do you _put_ it?" he asked incredulously, watching her gulp and swallow. The white lightning was by no means weak and Nicki was smaller and slighter than him, but she just grinned around the edge of the jar, eyes sliding over to him as she continued to chug. She let out an audible 'ah' as she slammed the jar down on the table when it was empty.

"And _that,_ my friend, is how you drink like a _man,"_ she announced.

"That's a human phrase that has no meaning here," Jensen pointed out sullenly.

"I like human sayings. They're quirky."

"Your brother took you down into town way too much as a kid," he quipped without really thinking about it, then felt like an ass, but Nicki didn't flinch. 

"And it made me the fine specimen I am today." She prodded him in the side. "God, look at you. Such a sap. You weren't like this with _me."_

"That's because you were a horrible lover," he pointed out. He and Nicki had had fun together, but they'd always been better friends than partners. Their courtship had never progressed to a mateship and had mostly involved an obscene amount of sex and Nicki getting them into trouble.

Despite himself, he felt his lips quirk.

It _had_ been fun though.

"I'll have you know I'm an _amazing_ lover, just ask--" she started then looked around the room, brow wrinkling. "Huh. I haven't slept with anyone else in here. That's weird."

The complete lack of irony or humor in her voice made Jensen burst out laughing, cackling into the wood of the table with his eyes pinched shut, because it was hilarious. Way more hilarious than it actually was, but he really didn't care.

He was still laughing like an idiot when something banged hard against the front door, making everyone in the room jump, and a couple of somewhat drunken betas stumble ungainly to their feet. Jensen raised his head as Nicki looked back over her shoulder at the door. There was scrambling, claws on stone and then wood, and Jensen's brow furrowed muzzily -- like all doors on pride ground, there was a latch lower on it that allowed someone to open it in cat form, but whoever was trying to get in now was flailing at it like they had no idea what to do.

"Must be Anthony back from taking a piss," Nicki remarked, twisting around on the bench, legs spread over the breadth of it. "Drunk ass kid. Man, I'm gonna run him tomorrow. He's gonna wanna _die."_

She was smiling sweetly as she said it, looking upwards like it was a nice little fantasy and Jensen snorted. He'd never been well suited to the hunting parties. Like most who went on to pursue the beta, or fought for the chance to be alpha, he took things too seriously for the hunters' tastes. Doing things like making a hungover cat run until they puked was considered a good time for them.

Then again, Jensen knew he shouldn't be one to judge. After all, Nicki's hunting party was closely bonded. They looked after each other like the soldiers Jensen had read about in human history books. Nicki might prank and tease and push her hunters around, but she'd fight to the death for each and every one of them.

"You going to let him in?" Jensen asked, raising an eyebrow.

Nicki snorted and turned back to the table, reaching around to try and find a jar that still had something in it. Jensen rolled his eyes and got up. If _she_ wasn't going to let the poor drunk fool in then someone would have to. He wasn't letting some idiot sleep out in the elements. Besides, the scent of ozone in the air suggested that it would rain later.

There was more frantic scrambling at the door and Jensen mumbled _'coming, coming,'_ as he walked over and put his hand on the handle. The last thing he expected when he pulled the door open was to have a young fertile collapse into the house at his feet, panting and shaking and stinking of heat.

Jensen felt it like a punch in the gut, and he felt the warm fuzz of his partially inebriated state vanish in a cold rush. It was instinct to drop to his knees, instinct to take the exhausted fertile in his arms, but it was his job too, and he swung his head up even as he pulled the fertile close.

"Get the lights!" he yelled to all the hunters and betas staring at him, already breaking into motion. "And someone get me a damned blanket. Shit... It's okay." He turned back to the ailure shaking in his arms. It was someone young, someone barely old enough to hit their heat and Jensen reached down to turn the other cat's head up, looking down at him. "Cole," he murmured.

Someone hit the lights, their rarely used electricity, and turned up the gas lamps as well, the room brightening. Nicki had grabbed a comforter out of the closet and was laying it out over the floor further inside, motioning briskly to another hunter who had some sheets in his hands. Jensen got his arms under Cole and tried to lift, but even young and a fertile he was too heavy in his cat form to be carried by one person and Jensen reached down to cup the cub's face.

"Cole, kiddo... I need you to shift, okay? Can you shift for me?" he asked, and Cole worryingly didn't respond. Jensen clenched his jaw, eyes darting around the room. 

"Someone needs to go and get me Misha!" he demanded, and one of the betas dodged by the crumpled mess of him and Cole blocking the doorway, going out to find Jensen's captain, wherever he was patrolling tonight. 

"Nicki," Jensen summoned, and she came over bearing a plain white sheet, offering it out to him. All jovial cheer was gone from her face and though her pupils were blown from the scent Cole was putting out, she was all business. "I need you to go to the Cove. Go fast. Find Jeff and...ask him what the hell is going on. Get him over here if possible. The kid's a mess."

"Alpha," was all she said with a nod, performing a perfunctory strip of her clothes and throwing them to the ground before shifting, her massive bulk jogging out onto the slope of pride ground before breaking out in a full run. Jensen turned his attention back to Cole.

"C'mon, little one..." He reached up with his free hand, stroking the fertile's cheek, brushing over the thick fur. "Just need you to concentrate for a second, alright? I know it's hard, but you can do it. Just shift and we'll get you somewhere comfortable. You'll be okay...You'll be okay..."

He kept mumbling to him under his breath, hearing others moving around him, and two of the betas shifted and took off towards the Cove -- worried that if Cole was here that maybe there was something worse there, and Jensen was grateful for their quick thinking. He wasn't drunk, but his mind was still a little muddled, though he was quickly sobering.

Those who remained in the building, watching with concern, would occasionally cough or turn to put their hand up under their nose, trying to mute the heavy scent coming from Cole. It was particularly strong in his first heat and hard to ignore, a heady scent that was thick like the forest, and it tugged on the attention of any dominant around him -- but the cub was still just a cub. Still growing up. It frightened Jensen, how hard Cole was trembling.

 _'Jared'hain...'_ came an unexpected whisper in his head and his eyes snapped up to Cole's face.

"Cole? What did you say? Jared?" He carefully turned the fertile's head to look him in the eye, worry rumbling through him. "What about Jared?"

What the hell had happened? Was the Cove safe? Jensen felt cold rush through him. All of their fertile were there. Every single one. What if something awful had happened? What if Cole was the only one to escape? It wouldn't just be Jared but every fertile in their pride that could be in danger, and Jensen felt a million things at once -- fear and worry and nausea churning in his belly. His body was tense and poised to run, his every desire to sprint to the Cove, to _do_ something, not to just sit here helplessly, unknowing of what the hell was going on.

"Hey," a voice called out, and Jensen looked up to see Aldis and a few other betas standing in the doorway -- the ones who were off duty at the moment, and they all looked scruffy with sleep, still waking up. Aldis was looking down at Cole, his stern face tense with worry. "Rafe came to get us from the bunks. Said something happened. He and Brigitte have gone out to get the captain. What's going on?"

"I don't know," Jensen said, shaking his head, and hating how weak his voice sounded, like he was lost. He clenched his jaw and firmed his shoulders. "Cole came crashing in -- something's wrong. Nicki went to get Jeff--"

 _'Here,'_ the dark cougar announced, running up out of breath, obviously having sprinted the whole way over. There was a light dusting of water on his coat, and Jensen noticed that it had begun to drizzle lightly. Jeff pushed his way through the group, coming up to press his head against Cole's, nuzzling briefly.

"He needs to shift," Jensen explained and Jeff nodded, walking in and shaking himself off. He padded over to a shelf of clothing and shifted, getting dressed. When he came back, Jensen transferred the fertile into Jeff's hands, letting the beta take over. 

"What happened?" Jensen asked, desperate to know. "The Cove..."

"The Cove is fine," Jeff replied, rubbing the back of Cole's neck. "Nothing happened to us. Jared, Brutus and this little one went out to stretch their legs and were gone for awhile -- after that I didn't hear anything until Nicki got to me. I ran into a couple of other betas on their way over to watch the Cove in my absence."

The report was brief and covered everything relevant: and revealed nothing at all.

"Jared," Jensen murmured to himself, worried for his mate but also having a responsibility to this fertile. He reached out, running his fingers under Cole's chin. The young one's shaking had slowed to a stop, after awhile, though he still shuddered with each breath, eyes clenched shut.

"Cole," Jeff said softly, voice low and rumbly but firm, like a parent gently commanding their child. "Cole, I need you to take a deep breath and shift, okay? We're going to get you inside and get you taken care of, but you need to shift. You need to tell us what happened."

Cole's eyes opened into slits, and he just looked up at Jeff for a moment, tongue working dryly in his mouth. Finally, he held his breath and shut his eyes tightly, letting the shift take him, and Jensen moved in immediately, he and Jeff wrapping the sheet around the boy to cover him. When he was bundled up, Jeff slipped one arm under Cole's shoulders, the other under his knees, and pushed himself to stand, carrying the fertile into the mainhouse and over to where Nicki had set up a bed of comforters and blankets. Instead of depositing Cole, though, Jeff sat down and held the fertile in his arms, making hushing, soothing noises as Cole hid his face against Jeff's collarbone.

Despite the noises, though, Jeff's face was like a storm cloud, nothing at all like the laid back expression he normally carried.

"Cole," Jensen said, crouching down at the edge of the blankets. "I know you're freaked right now... But I need you to tell me what happened. We're gonna do whatever we can for you, but I need to know what happened to you. To Jared, and Brutus... You said Jared's name before. What did you mean?"

For a long moment, there was no response, and it was so hard to stay patient. Jensen wanted to tear his own hair out. He had no desire to scare or further traumatize a fertile, and his heart sang with sympathy and a need to comfort just looking at Cole as he was now, but the mention of his mate's name had scared him. The fact that only Cole had returned when he'd gone out with Jared and Brutus scared Jensen even more.

Then, Cole took in a hitch of breath.

"...we went on a walk. Jared'hain... He offered to go out with me. I got put in the Cove last week and...and I was really sick of being stuck there, but I didn't even realize it. Jared'hain though... He--" Cole paused, and a hand crept out from the blankets, clutching the folds of Jeff's shirt. "He came over and offered to go on a walk with me. And he was right. I felt better, just...just getting out for a bit."

"Yeah?" Jensen urged, nodding. "That's good.... That's good, Cole. What happened then?"

Cole's hand clenched.

"...these cats came out from the forest. They were... Alpha, I think they were sabers." His eyes grew wide and terrified, staring at nothing. "They had long teeth, just like the regna's brothers. They started--... They said they were going to take Jared and me."

Jensen felt like his heart stopped beating for a moment. Like the world all narrowed down to just one thing -- like he was there, watching this all happen, and powerless to stop it.

"All this-- It just-- It happened so _fast--"_

"Shh," Jeff said, rubbing Cole's back.

"Brutus fought them and...and Jared'hain and I tried to run but there was this other one, waiting for us, and we couldn't _go_ we were _trapped--"_ He was breathing harder, eyes wet with tears and the trembling had returned. Jensen saw Jeff clutch the fertile tighter, like some physical promise of safety, and he'd never seen Jeff look so twisted. So angry. His face was set like stone. Cole crumpled. "Jared'hain told me to run and I--and I _did,_ I just _ran_ and I didn't look back."

He began to sob then, openly, loud, open mouthed gasps of air and pitiful crackling cries, face buried against Jeff's chest, body still wild with heat and now this, to be saddled with something like this while trying to endure the torment of Urrou's first spell. Jensen's hands clenched. 

His children were upstairs.

His and Jared's children, and his mate was somewhere, who knew where. Every inch of Jensen's skin felt like he was under attack, like he felt when he was in the trials and he was waiting for a fight to start. And he knew he wasn't bodily under attack, but some part of him knew that his pride _was._ He bared his teeth at nothing and stood up jerkily.

"Aldis!" he called, and the beta took a few quick steps towards him. "Go find where this happened. Fine Jared or Brutus or _something._ If they're gone, find their trail and wait for me there. Take another two with you."

The beta nodded once, a quick jerk of his head before he turned, grabbing two of the betas he came in with, headed out the door.

"Cole--" Jensen started.

"Alpha," Jeff interrupted. "He needs to be back at the Cove. He _suffers."_

Jensen looked at the fertile, still shaking and crying, his face shoved into the crook of Jeff's neck, and he was still trying to handle his first heat and this at the same time. But Jensen didn't want him sent back to the Cove. Not with what was happening.

"No. Stay here." He looked around. "Everyone out! Someone go upstairs and get my cubs. I want everyone who isn't a fertile or Jeff out of this building. Aubrey," he looked over to the beta. "Take every off duty beta with you and go to the Cove. I want you to get every fertile back here and into the mainhouse. Then you guard it. _No one_ is off duty tonight, do you understand?"

Aubrey looked a little pale, a little shocked, and Jensen couldn't blame her. Their pride had lived without threat from humans or other ailure for almost two hundred years. They were well trained, but nothing like this had ever happened before.

"You guard this house and this ground," he ordered, before looking to the hunters who were gathering their things to move out of the space. Fredric, the old head of first hunting party, was amongst them, and there weren't enough betas to handle this alone. And no one knew the hunting grounds like the hunters.

"Fred," Jensen got his attention. "Get your party up and moving. I need you to go out, groups of four and no less, and find every patrol, _every_ beta out on the hunting grounds and bring them in. I want every beta guarding pride ground. _No one_ leaves pride ground tonight. When Misha gets back you tell him to hold in my absence. You _protect this land."_ He looked around the room, looked at all of them and they stared back. "You hear me? Every one of you. You protect this land and these fertile. Hunter, beta, I don't care. This is our home and you will keep it safe."

He looked around the room, every face on him and just as serious. If they'd lost pride members this night then they'd be the last. Jensen couldn't stand the thought of losing Jared and he was no where near ready to call that yet, but in the meantime he was determined not to lose any more. He was going to find his cousin and his mate and he wasn't going to lose anyone else.

"Alright, go," he said, and the motion picked up again, everyone moving with hurried purpose, two hunters coming down the stairs carrying Jensen's sleep heavy cubs. The alpha didn't have time to say goodbye to them. He looked to Jeff.

"You have the fertile. Make sure they're safe and cared for. Make sure they're comfortable here -- the betas will be just outside."

"Alpha," Jeff accepted in response, Cole having settled in his arms. Jeff looked grim. Angry and grim. Angry like he wanted to tear something apart, and Jensen knew the other dominant had devoted his life, his existence, to caring for the fertile, and now one was gone. On his watch.

Jensen didn't blame Jeff, but he knew how he'd feel if he was in Jeff's position. Knew how Jeff was feeling now.

How any dominant would feel to lose a fertile they were caring for.

Jensen let out an angry growl as he stalked away, yanking off his shirt. He hadn't _lost_ Jared. He wasn't going to think that. Not yet. He pulled off the rest of his clothing and shifted, jogging out into the night. The moon and stars were obscured now, cloud cover having moved in, and a light mist was falling on his whiskers and coat.

The rain was coming in, but he could still scent Aldis and the other two cats who'd gone out. Jensen quickly took up his pace, following their trail.

He was going to figure out what the hell was going on.

He was going to find Jared. He was going to find Jared and Brutus and he was going to bring them home.


	11. Chapter 11

The rain had progressed to a steady fall by the time Jensen had found his way to the clearing.

The trail left by his betas hadn't been too hard to follow and he knew that wherever Jared and the others had gone on their stroll it would have to be to the north, as the river ran to the south of the Cove, blocking off the other side of the forest. He'd traced the trail by scent at first, then by footprint in the muddying ground, the clouded sky giving little away to see by, but Jensen was no stranger to the woods and their secrets. He'd spent several years as a beta before becoming alpha, and those years had consisted of more than enough tracking and patrolling at night and in conditions far worse than an autumn rain shower.

But the darkened forest, shadows between the trees and the leaves tap-tap-tapping with rain set up a fear in him, crowded in every little anxiety that had built and built since Cole had collapsed in the doorway. It was a kind of fear he'd never had to face before: threat to pride and home. 

He knew loss and he knew grief. He knew how it had felt to lay beside his mother in her sickness, to listen to the creak of her chest, watching the way it rose and fell under her fur, rose and fell until it didn't anymore, because the pride had no medicine, no shelter from the elements. He knew what it was like to fight for his life, knowing that he could yield but that he never would. That he would fight until he died or was alpha. And he knew what it was like to lose himself, to tear out a piece of himself and send it down the river, never knowing that it would come back to him.

Never knowing that it would bring him the mate he'd always wanted and never thought he'd find.

He knew all of these things, but he'd never known this. He'd never known the forest to look so menacing, for the home he'd walked all his life could look so strange and unfamiliar, a twisted web of mangled branches and overgrown ivy and vines, roots pressing out of the ground and mud slicking the path. He'd never looked around him and not known intimately where he was -- more than merely location but known the land like family, known it like a familiar old friend that he felt completely comfortable with.

Now the forest, his forest, had harbored strangers.

And if Cole was right, strangers that were Dawnbringers. And that _couldn't_ be right. The idea alone was enough to trip him up. How could there be more out there? And if there were, why would they do something like this? The concept of there being more sabers out there was too mind boggling, for him to think about now, just trying to deal with whatever it was that had happened.

Hyl'maithen or not, his home now hid people who'd come to do them harm, and Jensen didn't know what to do with that. He didn't know how to deal with the idea of being under attack. That the people he loved, the people he protected, his pride and blood, could earn the ire of anyone at all.

He'd never had to look nervously over his shoulder before and it made him feel strange and small, inconsequential in a way that was completely alien to him as an alpha.

It made him shaky and off-kilter and he lagged in his running, taking more time than was necessary to check his surroundings, feeling like there were eyes watching him, the paranoia of some on coming attack clawing at his insides. There was none, though, and he found Aldis and the others about an hour later, the sound of them moving about and talking, the sound of them fine and well, bringing him a breath of relief.

The feeling didn't last very long.

 _'What did you find?'_ he asked, emerging into the clearing, shaking himself to rid his coat of the rain that had bunched and drenched it, but it was a lost cause, more already falling. He didn't expect Aldis to look up and turn and bound straight over to him, standing in his way like a beta never would, and not one as regimented and respectful as Aldis.

The other ailure was so close that Jensen had to rear his head back to keep breathing room.

 _'Alpha,'_ the beta said, deep and serious. _'You don't want to see this.'_

Jensen didn't try to figure that out. He didn't even hesitate. The second Aldis said the words he pushed around the other cat and ran into the clearing, his eyes frantically searching for anything, anything significant, anything out of place, anything to give him some clue of what had happened, what Aldis was talking about, where his mate was--

But it wasn't Jared.

He could see that immediately. It was dark and drizzly and the visibility was low, but no one would ever mistake a cougar for a saber, and it wasn't a saber laying over there in the mud, coat splattered with dirt and something more, something darker. It wasn't Jensen's mate that was laying under the rain without a care, fur twitching only with the raindrops and still as the roots in the ground.

And nothing alive was ever that still.

Jensen stood there for a long minute, unmoving save for his breath, before he found the fortitude to put one paw in front of it, feel the pads sinking into the soft ground, displacing it, and then another. From the angle he was coming from he could only see the body from the back, could only see the line of it laid out on the ground, frill falling into a pool of water-- A dominant.

He felt his throat seize up and he ran the last few steps, coming up to the edge of his cousin's body, eyes cloudy and still a little bit open, staring endlessly at the other side of the clearing, as if he was watching something there, rain drops hitting the surface but no attempt made to blink them away.

Jensen crooned, lowering his head, pushing his nose against the back of Brutus's neck, as if he could stir him to motion again, but rigor had set in, who knew how long ago, and the body just rocked slightly. Jensen stared down at him, at the messy expanse of what remained, and there wasn't much to Brutus's throat anymore at all, a dull bloody mess that had gone dark and quiet long before Jensen got here. 

The other beta that had been looking over the body stepped back, stepped away and gave Jensen room.

No one said anything and the clearing was silent save for the arrhythmic beat of the rain.

Then Jensen's jaws parted and he made a protracted sound of pain, something as close to a wracked sob as a cat could ever produce, strangled and hideous. He pressed a paw to his cousin's chest, pressed to the fur but he was no warmer than the ground and no more living. Jensen felt his lips pull back in a sneer and this couldn't be real. This couldn't be happening.

He remembered being ten years old and being present at his first birthing. His mother was attending to her sister, and she'd brought Jensen and his siblings along. They'd all been unsettled by the long groans of pain their aunt was making, shifting around in jerky motions, and their mother told them it was okay but they all stayed back.

All of them but Jensen, determined, always, to be the brave one.

He remembered watching each cub born and the way his mother would clean their faces and coats, the way they looked so small and weak, wriggling around ineffectually and constantly crying. They'd looked strong and resilient, though, in comparison to their sibling, the last cub born, so very tiny and not making any sounds. Not moving at all. Jensen remembered getting so invested, so curious with each kitten and so excited, his fear melting away until that last cub and he'd felt a desperation then, needing to know that it was going to be okay, that everything would be alright.

"Shh," his mother had said to him, holding the runt in her hands, lifting a cloth and wrapping the little body in it. 

_'Is it dead?!'_ Jensen had asked, shocked.

"Just give him a moment," she'd replied, and begun to rub, moving the cloth back and forth, back and forth, and Jensen hadn't understood then that she was trying to get his circulation going, trying to rub life into him. To Jensen's eyes it had all seemed like magic. Like his mother, so calm and wise, breathed life into something that had none, and Brutus had wheezed and choked his way into the world, moving feebly.

He'd always been so small. Had always fought for every inch, even for life itself.

Jensen felt the rain dripping down his muzzle and he swallowed, throat clicking dryly. When he shifted, it was with a shiver, bare skin replacing fur, and his body was shaking with a sickness, with a panicked need to deny, fingers trembling as he extended his arm and touched the dead skin, the stiff fur, and choked out a wretched sound, face pulling taut.

He reached out suddenly, hands desperate and tugging on a body sluggish to move, hauling Brutus into his arms and holding him tight against his chest. The weight sat awkwardly, unbalanced and stiff and wrong and it clawed up in Jensen, something that hurt and twisted, ragged and raw.

_'Just give him a moment.'_

Jensen felt the wail tear itself out of him, bright and violent and loud in the gentle hush of the rain, a broken sound, like flesh dragged over gravel, like claws scratching through wood. It hurt to make, painful in his throat, already closing tight, hands clenching in fur that was still soft, still felt almost, almost alive. Brutus's head sat at an uncomfortable angle from his body, the gap in his neck making it curve back oddly.

He looked nothing like Brutus. Nothing like the cub that Jensen remembered, and Jensen had no idea how he'd gotten here, to this, to losing like this.

The cry cut out into a noisy, messy choke, bending over the body in his arms, the sobs jerking his stomach back hard, almost retching with it, and for a moment, he couldn't think about Jared, couldn't worry where his mate was or what had happened. He couldn't even think of his pride.

All he could thing about was the little runt cub that had followed him around, padded along in his paw prints, who'd always taken on any opponent, no matter how much bigger than him. The cub who'd grown up and never been scared of anything, never hesitated to throw himself _into_ anything, who'd never stayed down. 

All he could think about was watching Brutus prove himself to all the betas who doubted him, and to Jensen, who never had.

Jensen had worked for eleven years to make his pride safer, cared for. He'd learned how to service the generators, had gotten them running again. He'd gotten more cabins built and more shelter from the elements. He'd gotten them access to human medicine, to human invention and wisdom so they wouldn't have to suffer in illness, so they'd be able to live longer lives. He'd worked so hard to give them a better life and he felt like it had been stolen from him.

Like _Brutus_ had been stolen from him, taken from him by intruders, by strangers who'd just come onto his land and taken what was his. His _family._

His fingers clenched and teeth grit and he was so _angry,_ so angry and sick with grief because this wasn't fair. It wasn't fair that they could take this and he could never get it _back._

He looked down at Brutus, who he'd asked to protect his mate, to protect the regna of their pride, because Brutus would never give up, never lower his head or accept defeat. Because Brutus would always put himself in front of danger first, heart too big in a body too small. 

And Brutus had never given up.

He had protected his regna to his last breath, and Jensen was so proud and so heartsick, all at the same time.

He lifted trembling fingers, moving them up to awkwardly lower stiff eyelids, closing them one last time. Jensen let out a thick, shaky breath, inhaling in staccato bursts.

 _'Alpha...'_ a voice broke through, and Jensen didn't know how much time had passed, how long he'd sat crying over the body. He stayed looking at Brutus for a moment, some childish part of him still thinking that perhaps something would happen -- that Brutus would suddenly blink or breath or stutter somehow to life. When it didn't happen, Jensen tiredly lifted his head, turning to see Nicki there, and Jeff back by the others on the other end of the clearing.

"The hell are you doing here?" Jensen asked, voice flat of affect. 

_'We moved the fertiles back to pride ground -- Jeff said he was coming after you. I wanted to come. Jensen...'_ She took a small step forward, but Jensen halted her movements.

"Those weren't my orders, Nicki! I told everyone to stay on pride ground! How the hell am I supposed to lead if none of you will listen to me?"

 _'We_ did. _Alpha. Jensen...'_ She looked down at Brutus. _'...are you alright?'_

"Nothing is 'alright.'" He sniffed, running a hand under his nose, trying to clear his face, but the rain made it all a mess and he couldn't be bothered to care. " _They_ won't be alright. I don't care who they are..." He snarled, baring teeth. "I'll rip them to _shreds_ for this, for what they've done."

He growled low in his throat, deep and threatening, but it cut off as soon as it started, because it wasn't that simple.

"Jared, god, Jared..." He ran his hand up his face, fingers burying in his hair and palm pressed to his brow, over one eye. "They have Jared..."

 _'Jensen, I'm sorry. You have to know I'm so sorry...'_ The hunter shook her head, looking straight at Jensen's face but already the anger was consuming the grief, burning it away hot and searing, and Jensen was glad to let it. Glad to let that ball of tar in his chest catch fire and burn, because it was easier to deal with like this.

"You!" he called out to the betas on the other side of the clearing, head jerking up. "Over here."

The other cats made their way over, each looking slightly uncertain about intruding on something like this. Jensen's hand was moving without his permission, stroking over Brutus's shoulder, a back and forth motion, continuous. Jeff stopped a few steps back, dark eyes fixed sadly on Jensen's cousin. The alpha swallowed around the knot of his anger.

"What are you doing here? I told you to guard the fertile."

 _'They are safe, alpha. I saw them all into the mainhouse -- all there and accounted for. All but one. I can't leave one of my flock lost and missing,'_ the dark cougar replied, not asking permission.

Jensen scowled but didn't object, too much else on his mind.

"So I suppose you want to come looking for Jared with me then," but it wasn't quite a question. He turned his gaze back down at Brutus. He wanted to stay here, wanted to bring Brutus to the Pale Gulch and lay him out. He wanted to be next to his cousin when he was presented. He wanted to stay and watch, to wait and honor, but he didn't have that luxury. Jensen's mate was out there, and the last fertile saber in the world. And the person that Jensen's cousin had died to protect.

What would Brutus's sacrifice mean if Jensen did nothing?

Even so, even with his need to have Jared home and safe there was a part of him, hurting and weakened, that wanted to curl up and admit defeat. The anger, though, overshadowed it.

"...I want you to take Brutus back to the Gulch," he said finally, voice low in the rain. His fingers ran over the limp strands of Brutus's frill. "Carry him home and lay him out. _Present_ him before the Gulch. Keep two betas on him at all times -- I don't want his body touched. He is a hero..." Jensen's breath stuttered. "I want him _remembered."_

 _'Of course, alpha,'_ one of the betas behind him replied, and Nicki pushed herself forward.

 _'I'm going with you. To get back your mate,'_ she said assertively, and Jensen looked up immediately, fire in his eyes.

"The hell you are. Who do you think you are, giving me orders? To stand on my land, my ground and tell me what's going to happen? _I_ am alpha here, _not_ you. You're not even a beta--"

 _'Hey!'_ Nicki interrupted, baring her teeth _'I used to be a beta, remember? Don't you dare use that against me. And unlike these bozos I actually know you and know when to call you on your shit, so don't you think you're going to go running off into the woods without me, Jensen!'_

"You disrespectful little--" he started with a hiss, that anger boiling over, straight towards whatever target he could throw it at, to wherever he could let it out, but Aldis's voice cut in.

 _'He was with us,'_ he said, strangely soft, and it was that quiet that caught Jensen's attention. His head jerked to look at the other ailure, the faint spots of his coat barely visible in the darkness. _'When I entered the beta. He was with my year, in taking the calling.'_ His eyes swung low. _'We weren't close. But... We entered the beta together. We slept back to back. We weren't close, but he was still my brother.'_

And Jensen felt the fight leak out of him, replaced by that weary sadness. He looked back down at his cousin and remembered what it was like to be in the beta -- to not necessarily be close, to not even necessarily _like_ each other, but to be family all the same. Bonded through something different than blood. The ties of knowing someone would fight to the death to stand beside you.

 _'Jensen,'_ Nicki said again, no honorific, and she was usually pretty disrespectful, but not like this. _'...You need us. You're right. You're alpha. But you're also my friend and I'm not going to just let you run off into the woods alone. Let us help you.'_

Her voice was softer now and it sounded strange on her, usually so brash and loud, usually so boisterous. That calm comfort felt like some kind of odd fitting costume. Like it wasn't really her.

Like this wasn't really the world, just some strange illusion, and he had to admit it was more than just Nicki. The whole situation wasn't real to him, not yet.

 _'And besides, you'll need a tracker -- it's what I_ do, _Jensen. It's my job, and I'm good at it. I can show you where those bastards went,'_ she added, and when he glanced over at her she looked hopeful, almost pleading for his acquiescence. A part of him wanted to go charging off into the night, suicidal and self-destructive, throwing himself at the threat he didn't know, with numbers he didn't have. All to prove to the heavens his devotion to his family.

But he wasn't the basket case he was three years ago, and he'd vowed to never again let grief suck him under. He was hurting, and angry, and grieving, but he wasn't going into that emotional black hole again. He had his children, and his mate. And he had himself.

He looked down at the body of his cousin in his arms and nodded his head once in agreement, and he heard Nicki give an audible sigh of relief. Jeff and Aldis were more restrained. 

It hurt to let go of Brutus, to put his body back down on the muddy ground. It hurt because Jensen didn't want to leave him. After what had happened it felt like a betrayal. Like he was letting Brutus down again. He wanted to promise his cousin time, tell him that he wouldn't leave, but that wasn't an option.

And Brutus would have had no patience for him wasting the time anyways.

Jensen felt his eyes burn as he stepped back, looking at the limp form that had growled and pounced on bugs, picked fights he couldn't win, charged off into danger and never backed down from anything. It was just a body now, stiff and devoid of all the passion and ego that Brutus had possessed. It was just a body now and Jensen only wished he couldn't still see his cousin there, everything that made him him.

Jensen shifted with a snarl, shaking himself as he did so, claws flexing in the mud. He looked to the other two beta.

 _'You'll get him safely back to pride ground?'_ he asked, and the two warriors nodded seriously, voicing nothing in the somber moment. Jensen didn't want to let it go but he didn't have a choice. He stepped past Brutus's form, glancing down one last time before he jumped forwards, bounding back into the wilderness and hearing the other three run behind him. Jensen and Nicki took up the front, charging onwards as they followed the trail left by whatever strangers had dared to trespass on his land. Dared to take someone like Jared from him. And someone like Brutus.

Someone who'd been a bundle of problems and joys, all the complexity and uniqueness of life, irreplaceable and unrepeatable. Someone who'd been full of himself, probably more than he should have been, and always so proud. Someone Jensen had loved since he'd seen the cub struggle just to be born, _fight_ just to be born, and still win. 

For Brutus, nothing had ever been handed to him easy. He had lived his life with determination alone. Determination to survive, to fight, to win. 

Determination, always, to be the brave one.


	12. Chapter 12

The first night was grueling and not how Jared expected at all.

The images that had floated through his head had been graphic and chilling, made his nerves dance and shimmy. He couldn't get them out from behind his eyes, as much as he'd wanted to, and his mouth and throat had stayed dry as a bone, flinching every time one of the murderous sabers moved close to him, even by a step.

He tried not to think about it. He tried to keep from envisioning it. He wouldn't use the word, not even in his head. He didn't want to _name_ it.

It made it too real.

But none of them touched him, save for the occasional snap at his heels when he lagged. The leader stayed up ahead of them, guiding them forward and on to some destination that Jared didn't know, something deeper into the shadows and the woods. They didn't cross the river, so he knew they were headed north, but besides that he had little to go on, and his mind was too panicked and pained to concentrate anyways.

He tried not to think about what was going to happen to him, but he also tried not to think of Brutus, of the way his body had lain, so defeated and broken. He tried not to think about the fact that he'd never talk to his friend again, because the notion was so bizarre, so twisted and incomprehensible that Jared couldn't even wrap his mind around it. 

He'd seen Brutus's body with his own eyes, seen the blood pooled on the ground, but he still felt like he'd be able to tell Brutus all about this when he got back.

He just automatically assumed that Brutus would be there, because he always was.

And he just automatically assumed that he'd get back at all.

The only small mercy of the night was that after the first two hours, all his thoughts and feelings and panic descended into a numbness, because after the first two hours of running and running, hard and full tilt, his brain just turned off. His body burned through the adrenaline and the heat and then there was nothing but exhaustion. But if he dared to slow there were soon enough teeth nipping at his flank, at his feet, spurring him on with pinches of pain. His chest burned and his heart hurt, but he had no choice but to keep running, to keep his paws slapping against the ground until they hurt, and then until the hurt faded into unfeeling, until he wasn't even aware of his legs anymore save how the muscles in his shoulders tugged with every bound forward. After a couple of hours, he didn't even have the energy to grieve, his every ounce of thought and will power put into just continuing to run.

Sometime in the dark of the morning, it began to rain.

He didn't notice when it started, only when it got hard enough to soak him, running over his muzzle and through his fur. He was breathing open mouthed, dodging around trees and brush, his fur covered in burs and the ground began to soften. Mud splattered up his legs and he began to skid, claws tensing painfully to give him traction, following the blurring figures as the rain ran in his eyes. 

When they crossed a gully Jared lost his footing, body protesting the hours of exertion, and he ended up slumped in the mud, rain pattering down over him, pleasantly warm in the cool air. He lifted his head blearily, only to be cuffed with a paw.

 _'Get up,'_ Gedeon commanded, and Jared knew it was him, even though he could only see the other saber's dark paws. 

Jared stayed slumped in the mud.

_'I said get up. We're not done yet.'_

_'I'm_ tired,' Jared objected, turning his head up to glare at Gedeon defiantly but the dominant just growled down at him.

 _'I don't care if you're tired, you'll get up and keep going. Either you're being purposefully difficult or you really are this weak, in which case tonight is as good a night as any to get you used to things. We don't use cars or planes. We don't get our food brought to us by humans like kept pets. When we need to move we run. When we're hungry, we hunt.'_ Gedeon stood there for a moment, clearly expecting Jared to hop-to and obey. Jared just continued to glare at him. Gedeon's lip curled.

 _'And when we fall down,'_ he continued, _'we_ get up.'

With that the dominant snapped forward, seizing Jared's ruff with his teeth, having to turn his head to the side to avoid the too-long fangs. Jared yowled in pain as he was forcefully pulled to his feet, his ruff aching and hot, bleeding probably, and Gedeon only let him go when Jared was standing.

 _'Now,'_ the bigger saber said, sounding calmer, self-satisfied. _'Climb up the bank. We still have another hour of travel.'_

With that, Jared wasn't left much choice.

He had to climb the slippery embankment, claws scratching at mud, finding little purchase, struggling his way up with the dominants mocking and swatting him until he collapsed at the top, certain he had nothing left to give.

At least until Gedeon bit down hard on his tail -- hard enough to break skin and maybe down to the bone, Jared's body jerking up and shaking. His tail and scruff burned and throbbed with pain and when he had to run again, had to keep going even when his body couldn't anymore, he concentrated on that. Felt the pulse of his own heartbeat in the wounds, warm and a little bit more alive than the rest of him, muddy and soaked through and numb with tired.

When Gedeon finally did stop, Jared thought he was dreaming. 

For awhile he had to stand around, watching the four dominants chase a family of badgers out from under an old beech tree, huge paws scooping out clawfuls of dirt, increasing considerably the size of the den they'd found. Jared was so tired, so completely spent, that he wasn't even thinking, wasn't even wondering what was happening or what was going to happen. He just stood there passively until Dmitri came up and nudged him, butted his head against Jared's flank and urged him forward, down into the muddy den.

He crawled down under the beech, through the twists of its roots until he reached the flat, open space that had been carved out and let his body collapse. He felt, rather than saw, the other sabers crowd in around him, five cats in a small area and it was a surprise they fit. Jared didn't know whether to be grateful for their warmth or disgusted by their touch, but he didn't have time to figure it out.

He was passed out before even five minutes had passed.

\-----

Hours later, Jared woke up with every muscle in his body locked and on fire. He felt like every tendon had shrunk, too tightened and sore to stretch. It was daylight outside, a beam of sunlight shining through the canopy of the roots and onto the dirt at the entrance to the den. He was still surrounded by the other sabers, bodies all crammed close and now that Jared wasn't completely exhausted, he felt the urge to crawl away -- escape, maybe, but more importantly, just to be somewhere else. Somewhere not touching Brutus's murderers.

The thought brought pain like it hadn't the night before, too involved with running and surviving to indulge in the reality of what had happened. Now, trapped in some tiny, bug infested den, Jared felt a sob choke out of him, thinking of the egotistical but honorable beta who'd dogged his steps for the last three years.

Who'd insisted on coming along on that stupid walk. And if he hadn't he'd still be alive.

But maybe Cole wouldn't be. 

Or maybe Cole would be but worse.

Jared wasn't sure what to feel grateful or guilty for, at this point. He was too messed up, too thrown over this to figure it all out. There were _sabers,_ others like him, but _nothing_ like him at the same time. Nothing like anything that Jared had ever encountered before. He'd been in rough spots before, been in places in his life where he wondered how he got there and what the hell he was going to do. He'd cried himself to sleep plenty of times.

There was nothing like this, though. There was nothing he had to reference to know what the hell to do now. He couldn't run. He wasn't sure he could even get up, and even if he did there was no way he'd be able to sneak his way out of the den. He wanted to be _home._ He wanted to be in a _real_ den, in his mate's den, the comfort of their blankets and pillows, sleeping with his head on Jensen's chest, clean and warm and not covered in dried, crusty mud.

He had no idea how he was going to survive this. _If_ he was going to survive this. Already someone had died, and god, what if Cole hadn't made it back? 

While the dominants slept, Jared tucked his nose under one paw and cried quietly to himself, as privately as he could, until he fell back into another exhausted sleep.

\-----

When he woke up again, it was twilight and his kidnappers were rousing. The female dominant was nearest the entrance and stretching her legs, yawning widely and showing off those long fangs. She caught him looking at her and smirked over at him.

Jared just glared.

She slipped out of the burrow, trotting out onto the earth so lightly, as if nothing were wrong -- as if the kind of run they'd pulled last night was nothing. He supposed it was, given how fit all of them looked. Mangy, scraggly and dirty, sure, scarred up and unkempt and covered in mud and fleas, but no one could accuse them of being anything other than athletically strong. Even the betas of Jared's pride had nothing on these four.

Every one of them was huge and lean, not an ounce of fat on them. The Blue Ridge Pride worked for their survival, but these four _fought_ for it, and it showed.

It just made Jared despair even more, his brain still working to come up with some kind of scenario, some way of getting free, but there was nothing that _he_ could do that his kidnappers couldn't. Even if he did somehow manage to sneak away, they'd be on him again before he could get very far. He had no chance of outrunning them.

 _'How does it look?'_ Gedeon's voice caught his attention, though it wasn't directed at him. Jared glanced over to see Dmitri in the tunnel of the den, and the other one, the one that Brutus had torn a chunk out, was still laying on the ground. The wound looked bad -- red and bloody still, a whole flap of skin torn off and leaving muscle exposed to the air. The edges of it had turned dark and crusty in the night, and Jared could see that no attempt to keep dirt out had been made. Grit and mud was mixed into it and it had to hurt like crazy. The saber was grinding his claws into the earth, tongue lolling like a dog, but he was _smiling,_ his face eerily blank as he stared forward.

 _'Not great,'_ Dmitri replied. He leaned in to sniff at the wound. _'Doesn't smell. Not yet.'_

_'We'll just have to keep moving. You and Varushka will have to bath it in the morning and the evening. You know how he gets.'_

Dmitri just nodded, and despite the fact that he didn't really want to call attention to himself, Jared found himself speaking up.

 _'What's wrong with him?'_ he asked. Gedeon's great head turned, cloudy eyes appraising.

 _'You mean besides what that little cur of yours did?'_ the dominant responded and Jared's head jolted back in shock that he could blame Brutus for this. That someone so evil could think of someone so good as bad. Jared bared his teeth.

 _'He_ defended _himself, and me. You_ deserved _it.'_

Gedeon just chuckled, like this wasn't life or death, like a good person hadn't _died_ over this.

 _'And he deserved what he got,'_ the dominant replied, tilting his head to the side as his eyes narrowed. _'As to your question... Pyotr is just...different. He always has been.'_

Jared's eyes flicked over to Pyotr, who wasn't paying attention to the conversation. He was whining to himself and trying to lick and bite at the wound while Dmitri tried to dissuade him from doing so. When he caught Jared watching him he grinned, wide and predatory, nothing at all like friendly, and there was no lust in his gaze, nothing so simple and base. He looked like a monster, like malevolent and uncaring destruction and Jared shuddered, turning away.

Gedeon, for his part, laughed to himself again, crouching down to edge his way out of the den.

_'You should get up. We move out as soon as we've hunted down some food.'_

_'I don't think I can,'_ Jared replied.

_'You can and you will.'_

_'You don't get it, you stupid, flea bitten ass -- you ran me into the ground. I can't_ walk.' Jared knew the words were wrong when he saw Gedeon's expression change from humorous to angry, that dark storm cloud moving in over his eyes. They glared at each other for a long second, but Jared broke first, swallowing hard and wanting to be strong but just too damned scared. He needed to survive. If he wanted to get home to his mate and children, the first order of business was surviving, no matter what.

And that meant not mouthing off so much.

He scowled but shifted his paws until him, managing to shakily draw his weight up, dragging himself through the tunnel and up onto the loam of the earth. His elbows and knees moved at odd angles, his muscles sufficiently stressed that he had little control over them. He collapsed again once he was out of the burrow, and as much as it hurt to move, he was glad of the open air.

 _'Get up,'_ Gedeon said.

Jared tried. He really did. He tried to push himself up, splaying his paws and balancing awkwardly, but his muscles gave out before he could lock his joints and he crashed back to the ground, letting out a pained grunt as it knocked the air from him.

 _'Get up,'_ Gedeon repeated, stalking around him, nipping at the air next to his ear, Jared ducking away with a flinch.

Again, he tried. This time he could only get his upper half up, his back legs dragging behind him. He held it as long as he could, body quivering but it wasn't a matter of will power. His body was worn to the point where he just couldn't stand, no matter how much he wanted to. And if he couldn't stand, running, and even walking, were out of the question. He lay back down with a groan, heart beating fast like he'd just finished a work out.

 _'Get up. Get up get up_ get up,' Gedeon hissed, cuffing Jared's head with the back of his paw and it hurt, made Jared's ears ring, but it didn't scare him like it did last night. He was too _tired_ to be scared.

 _'You can bite me and hit me all you like,'_ he said gruffly, voice bitter and laced with thinly veiled hatred. _'But it's not going to make any difference. I can't_ move _you stupid son of a bitch.'_

For a moment, the two of them stood there, squaring off, and Jared began to regret his words -- it wasn't that they weren't true. He really couldn't get up. But he had no desire to be bitten and pinched continuously, and he felt nervous that he'd just encouraged Gedeon to do just that. Gedeon's lips curled and Jared tensed, body still and bracing, but finally the larger cat turned away with a growl.

_'Fine. But don't expect to be coddled all the time. We are not like your last pride. I'll give you some time to adjust, but after that you'd best be prepared to pull your own damned weight.'_

Jared wanted to laugh, sick at the hilarity of it. If this was coddling, god, he didn't want to see abuse.

Instead he just stayed there, still braced. Still waiting for the stick.

 _'We'll hunt down food tonight. Perhaps Pyotr will heal up some. But tomorrow night you_ will _be ready to run again, or else regret it.'_ The dominant paused to let that sink in then jerked his head over to Dmitri and Varushka, the two other dominants loping over to him, movements so oddly graceful, such a juxtaposition to the ugly brutality of their existence.

 _'Oh,'_ Gedeon added before they left, looking back over his shoulder at Jared. _'Don't think you've somehow out witted me. If you try to run, injured or not, Pyotr will hunt you down -- and he has a harder time with restraint than the rest of us. Once he starts, he goes for the kill, and that would be...regrettable, given how long we've waited for you. So don't try anything. You don't want to mess this up for everyone.'_

Jared didn't even bother responding to that, anger burning in him at the injustice of the whole situation, at how _right_ the bastards thought they were. He knew, in the abstract, that no one believed themselves to be the bad guy, but it rankled him to see it so plainly. To see people so _wrong_ act so _righteous._

But even though he wanted to leave, wanted to try, he couldn't. He hadn't been lying. He couldn't move and there was no way he was getting away without getting caught, and he feared the madness in Pyotr's eyes more than he feared Gedeon, so he stayed on the grass and waited, grateful, at least, for the small bit of solitude allowed him, his guard in the den and he out in the open dewy air.

\-----

The night passed slowly, Jared still tired but not enough to sleep. His heat was itchy in his stomach and he couldn't get comfortable no matter how much he shifted around. He tried to think about his kids, about Tristan and Nathalie and their fighting, about how they must be asleep now, safe and in their den, and as much as Jared tried to be grateful for that, he felt a selfish jealousy, wanting so badly to be with them. Wanting to bathe them and tuck them in. 

He tried to think about his kids and Jensen because it was easier than the alternatives: thinking about Brutus's still body, about the wreckage of his throat, about Brutus's voice insisting to come along and Jared teasing him all the while. Jared not taking the time to tell him how much the other cat's friendship meant to him, how much it had come to be a part of his life over the last three years.

And it was better than thinking of Cole, who'd come out there trusting him, come out on Jared's advice, hurting and in his first heat, and maybe he was lost and wandering the woods, crying out and unable to find pride ground. The image made Jared flinch, and he was almost glad when Gedeon and the other two returned with a young buck.

They ate in silence, Jared crawling over to gnaw on one leg. He didn't always eat raw meat, but it wasn't unusual to him, not after his two years of solitude, so he ate without complaint, downing skin along with muscle and the thin layer of fat. The food turned his stomach with all the emotions swimming in him, but emotional or not, he'd still have to run, and he needed the energy. It was a matter of pure survival now, and that became his motto, his mantra: survive until he could get away.

They spent the day in the burrow again, sleeping piled in, ears flicking away insects and it almost reminded Jared of the Cove, of fertiles laying around, dozing in the sun -- if not for the sabers' scars, their stripes and their fangs. If not for all the ugly memories that floated behind Jared's eyes every time he looked at them.

The next night Jared limped from the den, in pain but capable of moving. As much as he didn't want to run, he didn't put up a fight, wanting to push it, wanting to be difficult, but holding on to that image of his kids. He couldn't go home to them if he was dead.

 _'What's this then?'_ Gedeon asked as the others were stretching, and the huge cat leaned in close, way closer than Jared was comfortable with, sniffing at the pendant hanging around Jared's neck -- the necklace that Jensen had given him years ago, that Jared never took off. _'A shifting necklace... Our father told us of these. He made one for our mother, once.'_

Jared remembered Gedeon referring to Dmitri as his brother and a thought struck him.

 _'The four of you...are a litter?'_ he asked, not knowing why the hell he was curious at all. He didn't want to be. He didn't want to think of any of these brutes as people, as anything other than monsters, but they were sabers. They were, somehow, other survivors of what had been Jared's biological pride, and a part of him wanted to know, needed to know, how this had happened. What had happened to lead to this state of affairs.

 _'Five,'_ Gedeon responded, and he lifted one paw, sitting down on his haunches. The wrist brushed over the tiny skull hung around his neck. _'The four of us and our little sister.'_

Jared swallowed hard, shuddering a little as he looked at the little white skull dangling there, lower jaw missing and dry as dust. The empty sockets where its eyes would have been stared sightlessly out.

Blind as the moon, Jensen would have said, and Jared missed his mate with an ache. He wished Jensen were here. He wished for even an ounce of stability he'd felt just thirty six hours ago, curled up in the Cove and actually at peace with himself and his life. When he wasn't _here,_ a prisoner and captive and trying to make sense of things that he didn't want to know about.

Back when Brutus was alive. When his friend was alive and okay and--

Jared turned his head away, shutting his eyes and clenching his jaw, not wanting to shed a tear. Not in front of Gedeon.

He felt a tug on his necklace and reared back, eyes snapping open. He saw Gedeon's paw extended, like he'd been about to rip the necklace from around Jared's neck.

 _'It bears the sigil of our pride,'_ Gedeon said, voice strangely soft, almost nostalgic. _'A part of me wants to keep it for that alone. We are all that is left, and we have nothing. There is nothing left of our people but this. And it is...a sign. A symbol of our rebirth. But at the same time it was given to you by a cougar, by one of the ones who betrayed us. Given to you by someone who is not your mate.'_

 _'He_ is _my mate,'_ Jared replied, voice strangled.

_'He is nothing.'_

_'We have_ cubs _together,'_ Jared said, even knowing he shouldn't. He had no idea how Gedeon would react, seeing as how he seemed to hate the cougars, but the other saber seemed unphased and uninterested.

 _'I don't care about whatever halfbreed cougar mongrels you whelped out,'_ he said, and Jared drew his lips back in a hiss, but didn't dare to take a swipe, despite the anger burning in his veins at anyone talking about his kids like that. Sure, Jared teased and called them annoying and moaned about taking care of them, but they were _his kids._ He got to do that.

 _'He may have made use of you,'_ Gedeon continued insultingly, _'and I would understand why. But you are no cougar, and you were meant for something much more than this.'_

 _'Something more than being kidnapped, you mean?'_ Jared spat spitefully.

 _'Our people were driven to the edge of extinction by the humans and their alliance with the cougars. For years we've waited in the shadows, waiting for a sign, and you are that sign. If you chose to believe their lies, I care not. I don't need you to like me to fulfill our destiny. I don't need you untouched. The Hyl'maithen will return, and it will be through_ you.'

The 'whether you like it or not' was implicit and Jared wasn't stupid. He'd known exactly _why_ he'd been taken and the saber dominants hadn't exactly been secretive about it, either. All the same, to have it spelled out in front of him like this, to have it said so plainly, without regret or even some terrible attempt at romance -- to have someone look him in the eye and tell him that he was little more than a walking womb -- made him feel sick and angry all at once, fear so deep in him, so cold.

It made him want to run, then, and let them kill him for trying to escape. 

He felt the shifting necklace bump against his fur as he took a horrified step back, and he clung to that. He wished he could shift and cling to the pendant with hands, but he didn't want to be any more vulnerable than he already was. 

Jensen had given him that necklace. With the sign of his people on it -- his _real_ people, not these monsters. These creatures that were nothing at all like the Dawnbringers that all the prides of the world had described with such reverence. Jared didn't have to know his biological parents, or have met any of his original pride to know that they were nothing like this.

Jared's _mate,_ his real mate, had given him that necklace as a sign of fidelity and affection, and that was still with him, now. As terrifying as this was, as painful as it was, he had that much, and he clung to the idea of it. To whatever comfort it could bring him now.

 _'Gedeon,'_ Varushka said as she jogged up. _'They're catching up.'_

 _'They?'_ Jared asked, looking between the two dominants, and Gedeon sneered at the news before looking to Jared and smirking.

 _'Your "mate," '_ Gedeon replied. _'Looks like they don't intend to let you go without a fight.'_ He glanced back at his siblings. _'We should move out -- we've lost enough time as it is. And you--'_ he looked back to Jared. _'You'd best keep up.'_

Jared didn't know what he felt. Only a few minute before he would have feared Jensen coming here, putting himself in danger. His mate was strong, powerful, but even he didn't look like much in comparison to these beasts, and Jared couldn't bear to lose anyone else to this, not after Brutus. 

But now, stomach still queasy with fear and the threat of something so awful, so dark and twisted and _wrong,_ Jared glanced back over his shoulder, into the shaded woods of the night, and pleaded silently that Jensen would catch up soon. That, selfish as it was, he would take any chance to escape.

When the sabers began to move, Jared didn't have any choice by to follow, legs aching and feeling leaden, feeling the tug in his heart back towards the pride, back towards his children and his den and his mate and to the body of a friend who shouldn't have had to die.

Jared was running away from home for a second time in his life, but this time he'd have done anything not to be.


	13. Chapter 13

Jared had never been one for exercise. He'd never been the kid hanging out in the gym, the kid with the weights and the running. He'd always preferred to hang around and watch TV. Maybe sipping a soda. He had no problem with being skinny as a bean pole and sure, his friends had made fun of him for it in high school, but it had just been part of his charm. He didn't mind being a class clown, so long as people were laughing with him.

And when they made him run laps in P.E., he whined the whole way through it.

He never thought he'd be grateful for grueling exercise. 

His joints ached and his muscles throbbed and his paws, as rough and callused as they'd become over the last five years, felt like they'd been ground against stone. But it was all better than being mounted by some stranger. Better than being forced to carry some unwanted litter and every minute that that was being postponed was a good minute. Every minute they spent running was a minute that no one was harassing him.

So Jared didn't know where they were going, or why with such urgency, but he wasn't going to question it, not when it gave him time to breath, time to think. Time for Jensen to catch up -- and now Jared knew his mate was coming. His mate and probably others, betas of their pride, and god, he didn't want to lose anyone else, didn't want anyone else to end up like Brutus, but there was a reason they were running. The sabers might have been large and strong, might have taken out a beta in a fight, but that was four against one. They were powerful, but not insurmountable, and Gedeon, psychopath though he might have been, knew that.

He was trying to keep them up ahead of the rescue party.

Jared, for his part, was doing whatever he could to slow them down.

It wasn't hard, given how quickly he became tired. The sabers had little patience for him, though, and he'd only be able to make them lag for a few minutes before he'd be urged back to a full run. Still, he took every little pause he could get, both for his endurance and to let the others catch up more.

Sometime in the middle of the night they came across a stream and slowed, Gedeon padding over and jerking his head wordlessly. This seemed to be some kind of signal, the other three walking over and lowering their heads to drink. Jared didn't want to risk getting another swat, but after a moment without any commands, he moved forward and began to lap at the cool flow, water feeling wonderful and alive against his sandy tongue, and his eyes winced in pleasure. He felt his heart finally begin to slow from its near constant pounding from the run.

 _'We'll rest for a few minutes,'_ Gedeon supplied, walking up to Jared's side. Jared lifted his head enough to glare at the other saber, unwilling to feel anything but contempt for him and his attempts at kindness.

Letting your kidnappee drink and rest for a few minutes didn't count for much in Jared's book.

 _'Where are we going, anyway?'_ he asked, trying for some information. He wasn't sure what he'd do with it, but they said knowledge was power, and at the moment, Jared would take any power he could get.

 _'Curious?'_ the dominant asked with a smirk, tilting his head to the side.

 _'Guess I just want to know where my new 'home' is going to be, seeing as you're so determined to drag me there,'_ Jared returned scathingly.

 _'We have no set destination.'_ Gedeon's voice was less teasing then, answering seriously. _'The land to the far north is not much occupied by humans, and there are few ailure prides up there. We will find a haven -- a place of safety for our people.'_

 _'Canada,'_ Jared filled in, glancing down at the water. He wrinkled his nose at the rest of Gedeon's words. _'Safety for_ you. _For me it sounds like_ hell.' He whipped his head up to glare at Gedeon. _'But you don't know about hell, do you? You don't_ believe _in it.'_

 _'My father spoke of it, once or twice.'_ Gedeon seemed to think for a moment, glancing up at the sky. It was clear now, the storm having past, and the sky was dark as pitch, dotted with stars. _'It is a human idea. But he told me it was like H'raksha's pride.'_

Jared's education on ailure mythology wasn't exactly comprehensive, not having grown up with it, but he'd learned enough in the last three years. Especially given that Jensen would tell their cubs stories when he put them to bed -- Jared had listened in more than enough to know about H'raksha. The betrayer. The cat that scorned the sky gods and took half of Saul'hrao's sight.

They were just stories to Jared, but they were more than that to the other ailure, and, he could only assume, to Gedeon.

 _'Whatever it is, Hell or your_ 'H'raksha,' _I'll tell you this much: I know where you deserve to be. You're a monster, and when karma comes to call, you deserve every damned thing it dishes out.'_ Jared lifted his lips to bare his teeth, as much defiance as he could muster.

But whatever it was that triggered Gedeon's capricious anger, it wasn't this.

Instead, the older saber just laughed, grinning his huge fangs -- fangs that had ended Brutus's life -- and walked over to the water's edge. He looked down into it, moving pebbles with the tips of his claws.

 _'My father told me all the stories of the gods. How the world came to be, how the heavens were filled, how Yrsa danced with the dead and taught the fertile how to wield her power... But he always said that the myths were wrong. That he had believed them when he was young and sailing on the human boats across the sea. That he believed in Saul'hrao and Urrou, that he believed in Brigna's loyalty and Suhira's bountiful giving... And, in H'raksha's traitorous nature.'_ Gedeon lifted his head, looking back at Jared. His eyes danced with the light reflecting off of the stream, their surface blurred and cloudy as always, thick with veins. _'But he learned differently, after Yellowstone. After the humans hunted down the last of our people with dispensation, with the_ blessing _of the cougars. Do you know what he learned?'_

Jared steeled himself, sitting firm and obstinate and refusing to shake his head or give any indication of interest. He just glared at Gedeon, as hard and hateful as he could. 

_'That evil though he may be, H'raksha is a_ survivor,' Gedeon answered his own question anyways, walking forward and into Jared's space. Jared wanted to back up, to move away, but he didn't want to show any weakness, so he just pulled his head back, claws flexing in the loose gravel of the stream bank. _'No matter what, H'raksha always survives. Even when his plans fall apart, or even when Saul'hrao sent his beta to hunt the betrayer down, H'raksha survived. My father believed, once, in all the things that Saul'hrao preached to his pride, but when the men came with their bombs and their guns, it wasn't Saul'hrao who protected him. The great sun king turned his face away from us, let us languish and fade.'_ Gedeon snarled then, angry as if someone had just offended him. 'He _was the true traitor._ He _was the one who left us to die. It was H'raksha, the survivor, who taught my father the truth: no one is evil who fights to live.'_

Jared swallowed hard, not even sure what to say in the face of that. To an extent, he could understand it. He'd given his word to Gedeon that he would come along without a fight, in order to free Cole -- but if given the chance now, Jared would break that word to get to freedom. 

If someone was threatening his mate, or god, his cubs, Jared would justify a lot of things to save them.

But there was a line, always. And Jared knew he'd never threaten to _rape_ someone, not for anything. Not for anything _ever._

 _'...whatever you need to tell yourself, Gedeon,'_ he replied tightly, getting up and wanting to move, tired as he was. As much as he wanted to give Jensen time to catch up, he wanted this conversation over even more, wanted to be away from Gedeon's milky gaze and his flighty, unpredictable mood. He swallowed hard and looked over at his captor one more time, unwilling to ever let the older cat think that Jared was complacent in this. _'Whatever you need to tell yourself to justify what you're doing. But I don't care if there's a god, cat or otherwise, and I don't need one to know that what you're doing is_ wrong. _And I will never be a willing part of it.'_

Gedeon stepped closer and brushed their shoulders together, head close and Jared's skin crawling at the touch, glaring at his captor.

 _'...whatever you want, my little fertile,'_ Gedeon replied, smooth as cream and making Jared's fur rise. _'You and I... We are two sides of the same coin. And you can fight me all you want. It will only make the breaking sweeter.'_

With those last words Gedeon leaned in close, too close, and Jared heard the rocks on the bank clatter as he pushed himself away, tail flicking in agitation. Gedeon just watched him with a look far too amused, riling Jared up even more, but before Jared could say anything, the dominant was turning to his siblings. 

_'Break's over. We're moving again. Pyotr, you too.'_ He paused to shake the more trouble cat from whatever hazy place he'd gone, and Jared watched Pyotr unfold himself, laughing at nothing and play fighting briefly on the bank with Dmitri like they were normal cats, like they were anything like a normal pride.

It just made Jared feel sicker, hating that he was beginning to get to _know_ them in any way.

He glanced back behind himself one more time before Varushka was nosing at him, making him cross the stream and run further from his home. He could only hope that Jensen got there soon.

He couldn't bare the thought of spending even another day with this fucked up family of monsters.

But all he could do for now was run. Run, and have faith that his mate would find him.

\-----

Jared had no way to track time as they traveled, and even if he had, he was too tired to pay it much mind. He knew it had been hours since sundown and had to be nearing morning when Gedeon began to slow, searching around for some kind of cover. At first Jared had just assumed that they'd been journeying under cover of night to avoid detection, but it wasn't as if anyone was watching them, and the trail they'd left would be the same, night or day.

Their pace slacked more and more as they went on without any sign of a den or burrow to set up in and Gedeon's agitation seemed to grow, and it was only then that Jared began to realize that he'd only ever seen any of them active during the night. It wasn't unusual for cats to be nocturnal, and back with the Blue Ridge, one of the three hunting parties was a night only group. This wasn't the same as that, though. Even nocturnal animals didn't treat the change from night to day as a hard barrier like Gideon did, like day would somehow undo him.

Jared remembered the first night, Gedeon telling them they only had a few hours until sunrise, and he didn't know what all this meant, what it added up to besides the fact that these cats seemed to avoid the sun, but he knew they _were_ avoiding it. He thought back to the conversation earlier in the night, and perhaps their twisted beliefs called them to hide from Saul'hrao's eye, as the ailure called it. 

In the end though, it was that slow pace that let them be caught. For Jensen to finally catch up.

Jared wasn't the first to notice -- not by a long shot. His senses weren't anything like the dominants, sharpened by years of hunting, and Jared jumped when Pyotr whirled around, growling and salivating, the viscous fluid dripping slowly from his jaws. For a second, Jared thought the insane creature was growling at _him,_ and he started looking to Gedeon to intervene, to save him, and god, wasn't that a piece of sickness right there.

Jared was determined to not _ever_ develop any kind of Stockholm Syndrome for that fucker, whether or not Pyotr went crazy and decided to eat Jared whole.

The group stopped, head's perked, and it was Varushka who spoke first.

 _'They've found us,'_ she announced, and Jared couldn't help it -- his heartrate picked up with hope, thumping away in his chest as he whirled around, eyes searching the dark woods for some shape, some movement, any sign that Jensen was nearby. He felt, rather than heard, Gedeon move up beside him, all of them facing back the way they'd come.

Two minutes later, Jared saw something slink out of the underbrush, a dark figure, then another, and another. Four, in all, emerged, growls low and rumbling in the night. The moon was wan and light lacking, even if they were just on the other side from dawn, and it took Jared a moment to be able to pick out Jensen -- two on his right, one on his left, and taking point, moving cautiously forward.

It took every ounce of willpower not to just rush over.

Gedeon was right next to him, though, and Jared had visions of being hamstringed before he even made it two steps, so he just held still. Held still and found Jensen's eyes, looking at him to gather some kind of strength.

Jensen's snarling stopped for a moment when he saw them, and Jared saw the shock flash across his face -- as sure as it had flashed across Jared's, the first time he realized he was looking at sabers. Real, living sabers.

 _'...who_ are _you?'_ Jensen asked finally, once he'd regained his poker face. _'How are you even--... Let Jared go. Let him go or I swear to the Eye I will rip you apart myself.'_ His lips curled up, baring sharp and plentiful fangs, growling menacingly,

But Gedeon didn't respond to him. Instead, the dominant turned his head to look at Jared, speaking low and only to him.

 _'What do you think, then, little fertile?'_ he asked. _'Your cougar owners have come for you. Will you run back to them?'_

 _'What do you think?'_ Jared spat in return.

 _'I think...that there's no need for this to get_ ugly. _I think that you could tell them to go home and leave us be.'_

 _'Yeah? And why the_ hell _would I do that?'_

 _'Jared!'_ Jensen's voice caught his attention, and Jared swung his head back around to look at his mate, taking an instinctive step forward. _'Are you alright?'_

 _'Yes,'_ he replied, voice grateful and too full of emotion, just to be seeing Jensen again -- and Jeff, as well, the darker cougar covered by shadow and snarling still. Jared could make out Nicki and Aldis as well and he didn't know if four would be enough to take on the sabers, but he could hope. He didn't _want_ it to come to that. He didn't want to risk losing anyone else. But he would do almost anything to get away at this point, and he was shivering with just the relief of seeing Jensen there. Of knowing this was almost over.

 _'You won't walk over to them,'_ Gedeon interrupted his thoughts, leaning his head in close. _'You want to, but you won't.'_

 _'And why's that?'_ Jared replied testily, still looking straight across the gap in the forest to Jensen, not letting him out of his sight. After the last few days, after seeing Brutus dead and Pyotr's madness and Gedeon's careful eye, after running until he couldn't run anymore and knowing exactly what was planned for him, Jared just wanted to be _home._ He wanted to be home and safe, somewhere where his heat wasn't a weapon to be used against him.

 _'Jared--'_ Jensen started, taking a step forward.

 _'Because you wouldn't want to let them get sick,'_ Gedeon murmured in Jared's ear, and Jared stopped cold.

 _'What?'_ he asked, before finally tearing his eyes away to look at Gedeon's cloudy ones.

_'You had to know. No one escaped. Except you, somehow, my blessed little fertile... And now you're one of us, just as you were always meant to be. No one ever escapes Yellowstone, my love -- not even you.'_

Jared stared at him, swallowing hard and shaking his head.

 _'No... Fertiles, we--'_ It was like what he'd been told. As a teenager they'd learned about the park rangers having to hunt down the sick cats, but at the time he hadn't know about fertiles and dominants. All he'd heard was that some of the Yellowstone pride had managed to survive the illness, but had gone violent and feral. It was only once he'd reached the Blue Ridge Pride that he'd learned the truth: the disease had been fatal to the fertile. 

But not to the dominants.

Jared had been assuming that Gedeon's family had escaped the sickness, just like Jared's biological parents must have.

But they hadn't. They'd just escaped the bullets.

They weren't just bad people, weren't just traumatized and fucked up by what had happened to their pride. They were sick.

And now Jared was too.

 _'Gedeon,'_ he said, voice shocked and low, shaking his head. _'The disease... It's_ fatal _to fertiles.'_ These four had apparently lived with that illness for at least the last forty eight years, survived with it, and it obviously didn't kill them, but it had made them as unstable and violent as Jared had always heard. Their eyes, their aversion to sunlight... It suddenly made a sick sense, and Jared just hadn't _thought_ about it before now. Hadn't done anything but assume that they were like him -- fucked up, but like him. Evil, but like him.

Survivors of Yellowstone.

They weren't survivors though. They were ghosts. Living remnants but nothing at all like the cats of that once great pride.

 _'That's a risk I'm willing to take,'_ the dominant replied casually as he drew back, walking around Jared to the other side of him, tilting his head in towards him. _'The question is...are you?'_

Jared's head snapped back to face Jensen again, who was looking at him curiously, unknowing of what was happening. Unaware of the fact that Jared was already as good as dead.

 _'You can go over to them. To him. I'll let you,'_ Gedeon continued, murmuring in Jared's ear. _'All you have to do is step forward and walk over there. I won't do a thing to stop you. That's what you want, isn't it? To go back to him?'_

 _'I--'_ Jared started, felt despair clutch at his throat, even worse than Brutus, because what was the _point?_ What was the point of this if it was all already over? How the hell was he supposed to survive this if he wasn't going to _survive?_

 _'Then go. Walk across the clearing. Go to him and bring to him all of our legacy. Bring him the vengeance of the sabers.'_ Gedeon pressed in further, rubbing the side of his head up against Jared's butting them together, but Jared didn't react, just continued to look across at Jensen, seeing his mate's shock and confusion, growl tapering off as his brow creased, staring at Jared and looking for answers.

But if Jared went to him now, if Jensen and the others crossed to fight, to try and win Jared back, they'd end up like the monsters that had killed Brutus. They'd end up as sick and wild and ruined, and Jared couldn't stand the thought. He couldn't stomach the idea of Jensen as anything other than the proud, caring alpha that Jared had come to know. 

If he let them cross, Jensen would take the sickness home with him, to their friends and their family. To their cubs, and Jared choked at the thought, shaking his head.

He squeezed his eyes tight shut for a second, then took a deep breath and opened them.

 _'You need to go home, Jensen,'_ he said, as firmly as he could and with every ounce of fortitude he could find.

 _'...what?'_ the alpha finally asked, sounding shocked. _'Jared, what's--'_

_'You need to go home. And I'm not coming with you.'_

Jensen didn't reply this time, just shook his head, looking so confused, so _lost,_ and it broke Jared's heart. Jensen started to walk forward and Jared's felt panic leap up in his chest.

 _'Stop!'_ he barked, watching the alpha freeze in place, eyes wide and staring at him. _'Stop. I told you-- I told you. I'm not coming back with you. There's no point to this.'_

 _'No point to--_ Jared. _Jared, please, just--...Tell me what's going on. Please. Talk to me.'_

Jared swallowed hard, the pain in Jensen's voice enough to make him want to lay down and cry, and it was only made worse by the sheer hormonal force of his heat. Jared couldn't stand the thought of not going home, of not being with his mate or ever seeing his children again. It tore him up inside. 

He wanted to go home more than he could stand, but he loved it enough to stay away. He'd only lived with the Blue Ridge Pride for three years, but it had only taken three years for Jensen to instill a sense of pride in him. He was more than just a person, more than just an ailure. He had carried the litter of an alpha inside of him. He was the last surviving fertile of the Yellowstone pride. 

He was regna and he had a duty to his pride above and beyond that of any other fertile.

It would be so easy for him to go to Jensen now, but this wasn't about Jared, or Jared's wants and needs. His pride came first, and he wouldn't cross to his friends. If he did, he would bring with him a disease that would kill Jensen, and everyone else. If they returned to pride ground with it, it would destroy the pride, and Jared's precious children.

As much as he wanted to go to Jensen, to let his mate quench the fire inside of him, he was something greater than his hormones now, no matter how powerful his heat. He wouldn't betray his people.

He steeled himself, steeled everything inside of him, and looked at his mate.

_'You once said that if I chose, I could leave. That I could join another pride.'_

Jensen jolted, as if struck, but Jared didn't look away.

 _'You said no questions asked,'_ he continued. _'You said it was my choice to make, and that if I wanted, you'd let me go.'_ He clenched his jaw, teeth grinding together, hating every minute of this and Gedeon's eyes on him, watching him with barely disguised glee. _'Is that still true?'_

_'Jared--'_

_'Is it still true, Jensen?'_

_'...yes,'_ the alpha answered finally, all the fight gone out of him, and that was what Jared needed. He knew his mate, knew his pride and his friends, and they would fight to the death for him right now. He couldn't just tell them what was happening because Jensen would throw caution to the wind and challenge Gedeon anyway -- challenge him for stealing one of his fertile away from him. 

Jared needed Jensen to leave. To go. And the only way to do that was to make him not want to fight.

 _'Good,'_ he replied and began to turn away, glancing back at his alpha one last time. More than anything he wished that this had been the rescue he'd been hoping for, and it was cruel that he was the one who had to turn it away. But his pride needed rescuing more than him, and Jared wouldn't be the one to bring them to their knees. 

Gedeon moved next to him, the rest of the sabers following as Jared turned around, walking away from the clearing, away from Jensen, and back into the woods. He could still feel Gedeon's eyes on him, watching him, could hear the other saber chuckling to himself, but Jared refused to look anywhere but straight ahead.

He was sick -- already as good as dead. But his pride didn't have to be.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings for this chapter: implications of non-con(nothing graphic), cannibalism, patricide, general violence and sociopathic thinking.

[1970]

Gedeon always knew he had a destiny.

His father told him so, but it wasn't necessary. Gedeon _knew_ it. Blood deep.

It was something he was born with, something written against his bones, something grown into his skin as much as his fur. It was something true and constant, an understanding by which he lived his life. By which he interpreted the world. He'd known it as a child, and grew up in the knowledge of it, formed himself, the shape of himself, by it.

He didn't know what it was -- not at first anyways. 

He'd thought up possibilities, ideas. He'd imagined scenarios as a child, dreamed of them. He'd indulged in the fantasy more than enough. But he didn't know, not really. He didn't know what great plan the gods had for him, only that they had one.

He didn't know, not until he saw the sun.

His father had told him not to go out after daybreak -- to never leave their burrow once they'd bedded down. And every day he obeyed, unquestioning. He would shuffle in, marching amongst his siblings, all of them piling into the space hollowed out in the hard packed earth, settling down against his father's flank to sleep.

But one day, going to sleep, he couldn't help but begin to wonder, and no matter how many times he tried to stop, his curiosity just grew and grew.

He'd see the sunlight before, seen the way the end of the tunnel seemed to hazily glow and where once it had frightened him, now he wanted to know more.

His father had told him about the sun, about the great, open eye of Saul'hrao. He'd said that the sun king was searching for them, scouring the earth to find them, so that he could burn them out, hide the evidence of what he'd allowed to happen, and that that was why they had to hide during the day. Why they hunted only at night. To hide themselves away from the fire of the heavens and Saul'hrao's sight.

But when Gedeon was five, he decided wanted to know for himself.

They had gone to bed at sun up, settling into the burrow as usual, his father's paws dragging over dirt, and Pyotr was bleeding at the back, the result of Varushka's attack earlier in the day. The cub was mewling to himself, refusing to be quiet, and father snarled when the noise became annoying. Gedeon settled down near the tunnel that led out of their burrow and watched as Pyotr would yowl only to get cuffed harder and yowl again. 

Gedeon wanted the idiot to shut up so that they could go to sleep -- he wouldn't be able to sneak out while father was awake.

It took forever, Pyotr making his pathetic noises for almost an hour before father finally just shoved him to the other end of the burrow, bedding down closer to the tunnel than Gedeon would have liked. He put his head down and just watched his father's eyes blink lazily, feeling like it took forever for them to slip shut, forever for him to slip into sleep. Gedeon's siblings were already out and he could hear their hazy breathing, but father took ages, something Gedeon had never noticed before, always falling asleep first.

It was hard to keep himself awake, eyelids dipping, but he fought against it, blinking rapidly and shaking his head whenever he felt himself fall halfway into Yrsa's shadow.

Eventually, though, he edged up onto his paws, trying to walk as light as possible, just like father had taught him when hunting. He crept by, holding his breath in case it gave him away, walking past at the slowest of paces, only breaking into a run when he'd reached the tunnel. 

He glanced back and saw the shadow of his father, still and unmoving, and Gedeon grinned to himself, running his tongue over dry fangs. 

The open tunnel was what freedom must taste like, Gedeon was sure. 

He ran up it and scrambled out onto the grass. It was summer now, and they spent most of their hours hidden away inside burrows or dens or caves, and it seemed like forever until winter would come -- come and bring the long night with it, cold and perfect. The grass felt the same between his paws now as it did at night, and so far, the world didn't seem that different.

Brighter, hazier. Harder to see, though.

He was in the shadows of the trees but even so, everything glowed with violet light, obscuring the lines of the world. Everything looked fuzzy and too much, heady and over saturated -- the trees, normally so still and sturdy, appeared to weave in the light, come to life in a way that Gedeon hadn't expected. He'd never known that the trees were only awake during the day. 

He winced, eyes nearly closed and blinking rapidly, moving through the forest out towards the edge where the shadows ended, the corridor of the trees looking as if it led to one massive ball of effulgent light, bleeding out into the world. Sections of it broke off and floated around, invading the shadows, and Gedeon jumped when one came too close to him, but felt nothing. 

Not, at least, until he stepped out from the shade and looked up to see the sun.

He had thought it would be like the moon -- a simple round eye hung in the heavens, looking down at the earth, but it was nothing like that. It was so big that Gedeon couldn't see the beginning or end of it, and its width took up the breadth of the sky, horizon to horizon, glowing intensely and burning everything that it looked upon. It was too big, too close, and so, so bright. Gedeon saw it for only a heartbeat before his eyes snapped tight shut to protect himself, and only a second before he began to feel the heat burning at his skin, setting his fur on fire and he screamed.

He felt his mouth open, felt his throat tense, heard the blood curdling yowls and shrieks as he began to flip and claw at the grass, panting as the pain ran through him like a flood, smashing everything in its path. He rubbed himself desperately against the dirt, but nothing he could do seemed to end it: Saul'hrao had seen him now and would not let him go.

Gedeon didn't know how much time past, or how long he'd been screaming when he saw his father -- saw, for a flickering second, the image of his family in the shadows, as his body pitched and twisted, unable to stop moving, scrambling with a mindless panic that accomplished nothing. All he knew was that in the next flip he caught another static image: that of his father turning around and walking back to the burrow.

 _'Don't leave me!'_ he pleaded, screamed in his head like it could somehow be louder, desperation making his voice crumbly and cracking. But father just descended into the den, Varushka and Dmitri following after a second, watching Gedeon curiously.

Gedeon knew, then, that he was going to die.

He knew it as the sun burned through him, ate up his coat and scarred his bones, that Saul'hrao was burning him from the inside out. Searing away the evidence of his crime and scrubbing that blemish out. Father had said, many times, that they were sick, wrong -- that they were tainted with man's ills. They had survived their pride through evil, and would always be marked as thus. 

But Father had always said that no evil was too much, if it meant surviving. 

It was something that Gedeon had never understood. 

He had never felt bad about anything in his life, never understood the concept of evil or good, but he knew judgment. Father had spoken of that much. That they were judged -- and for the first time in his life, Gedeon felt that. He lay on the ground for a long time after he was too exhausted to scream anymore, too exhausted to fight. He had pissed and soiled himself and was panting for breath, his eyes unfocused, but Saul'hrao had no intention of going fast.

Gedeon lay there all day, insensible with pain, until the world became nothing but light, nothing but burning, consuming light. He could hear the sun, hear it roaring as it burned, staring down at him unblinking, not shy and winking like the moon but forthright and righteous. It stared down at him and Gedeon felt himself falling, felt the world ending, turning under him and twisting him up, grinding his bones down into dust long after he'd died, ages after his flesh had rotted away. He felt himself spinning, dizzy and reeling, and he didn't see sun down, wasn't even aware of it.

He didn't come back to himself until long after darkness had fallen, and the world had finally gone quiet again. The screeching of the sun had left a ringing in his ears that wouldn't fade, and he thought that all of his fur must have been burnt away by now, but when he managed to raise his head, muzzy and reeling, he saw he looked exactly the same. Even though it had felt like his fur was being yanked out, like his bones were being broken, like his chest had been cracked and set on fire from the inside, there was not even a scrape to show for it all.

He was breathing hard when his head swung up to look at his father, who was waiting for him while his siblings played around in the undergrowth, pulling off the back legs of a squirrel with their jaws and laughing as it tried to crawl weakly away.

 _'Do you understand now?'_ his father asked, lowering his huge head. His eyes, milky and dotted with veins, blinking uneven and one of them permanently frozen in his head, stared down at Gedeon searchingly, and Gedeon did. He nodded once, the pain still in him, buried in him, just under his skin, and he knew it would never leave.

 _'I do,'_ he replied, feeling Saul'hrao in him, all around him, part of him and incapable of being removed. He felt _judgment_ and knew it. Understood it in a way he never had before. He'd never before understood why they had to hide, understood why it mattered at all what they did.

Their lives were good. Their lives _felt_ good.

But Gedeon had looked into the eye of the sun king and he couldn't unsee it. He couldn't unknow the feeling of being damned, and it sparked an anger in him, like the fire of the sun that would never burn out, an anger that burned slowly, embers flickering to embers and leaving only ash in their wake. 

Gedeon had seen the sun once, but after that day, he never saw it again.

\-----

[1980]

Gedeon grew up in no particular place in the world. He and his family, his pride, moved almost constantly, their lives worn paths across a country they didn't know, and their jobs merely that of making it through every pass of the sun through the sky.

They hunted and ran and fought, bloodied each other for sport, and Gedeon didn't question it. He never knew any other life. He never knew that he could even want anything else because he didn't. The world was a violent place and he revelled in it, in the fact that he would always outmatch it.

At least, until the sun came up.

These days, fully grown and the size of a bear, Gedeon feared very little, but he feared the sun. The day still set its boundary and they couldn't cross it, and it was the only boundary that Gedeon still respected, save that of his father.

The night time though -- the night time was better. The world was open at night.

Clear and perfect, everything cool and collected. Quiet. No screaming, no bright lights, nothing too fast or too loud, nothing to shatter the still. The grass felt cool and dewy under his paws and the shadows stretched out fuzzy and indistinct, blending into one another with no sun to cast them long and strange.

The night was when the world came alive with relief, a soothing balm at the end of the hours spent under the sun king's piercing eye.

The night was when they hunted. 

Father was in one of his fits, crying at the walls and refusing to leave the burrow, moaning about the pain, about his pride, about anything that flitted across his mind. Most hours of the day Gedeon's father was an alpha worth following, clear and powerful and decisive, but sometimes, unpredictably, it would fade, leaving an imposter in his place. It would leave a pathetic pile of tears and regret, whimpering in a corner. He would groan apologies to Gedeon the others, talking about how he should have done better: how he should had drowned them, back at the beginning. Gedeon never knew what the old fool was talking about -- he and his siblings had been born infected, lived with the sickness all their lives, and he'd never felt any pain. It was only their father and Pyotr who seemed to experience the seizures, and Gedeon could only chalk it up to their weakness, their bodies inherently less powerful than the others.

But it was no matter. Soon enough his true father would return, and their pride would move on.

In the meantime, he and Dmitri had left their current den, racing each other through the long stretch of trees, moonlight streaking over their backs and claws scratching over rocks as they scrambled up a jut in the ground. They left white marks on the stone behind them, rocks and pebbles clattering down over the face and Gedeon could hear Dmitri rumble a growl when some of them pelted him. He swatted out, trying to score on Gedeon's skin, but the bigger cat was faster. Always had been.

He laughed as he conquered the summit of the small hill, his brother's violence impotent and claws slashing through air. Gedeon paused at the top and looked back below him, watching Dmitri scratch his way up onto a ledge, tail flicking.

 _'Perhaps we should kill you_ and _father. So slow, Dmitri,'_ Gedeon teased.

 _'I'd like to see you try, you pile of shit.'_ The other cat hissed and Gedeon laughed.

_'Never let trust anything that walks on two legs, brother.'_

_'And never let anything slow you down,'_ Dmitri finished automatically, voice dry. _'I won't slow you down.'_

 _'We'll see.'_ Gedeon tilted his head to the side, as if considering. Dmitri didn't show much fear, but Gedeon could see it. Sense it. Dmitri may have been a fool, but he wasn't as mindlessly foolish as Pyotr. He still knew what was coming. That one day Gedeon would be their alpha. That one day Gedeon would cull all those he didn't have a use for.

Unlike Varushka, though, Dmitri had no designs on the position himself. Just wanted to remain where he was, and with relative safety.

That made him useful. Eager to please.

 _'Show me you can actually keep up, then,'_ Gedeon challenged before turning away, jumping down the sharper rock face, leaping from ledge to ledge, claws shrieking against rock, and he heard Dmitri yelling 'wait!' but Gedeon had no intention of doing so. He swung from rock to rock, feeling the air rush by him and gravity change directions again and again, tumbling wild and head first and care free, death an old friend and pain a guarantee. He felt the fizzle bubble boil of the sickness in his head, demanding more, demanding that he run, that his heart pick up its pace and thud like drums across the land, beating hard and unrelenting, driving the world to war. To an endless battle until the soil was so turned and so dead, the earth so scorched and so lost, that the sun could never again bear to look at it.

So that Saul'hrao would turn away his head in shame and Gedeon wanted him to be next.

He landed on the grass and ran without stopping, his legs jolting from the impact but the numb pain that ran through his bones was nothing, only a reminder. He rushed by the trees and heard Dmitri behind him, a distant and unimportant memory, blood of his blood but good for little. The moon was high and wide and a grace over the land, over the tops of the trees and Gedeon planned to run until it was only him and that light, him and the moon, until him and the scar of H'raksha became one, merged as he ran through the pale rays of what was left behind.

Him and the scar.

He honestly wasn't even aware of Dmitri, didn't even remember that his brother was there, or perhaps that he had even existed, when the forest broke to a river and Gedeon went flying into the water, felt it cold like ice on his hot skin. He wasn't thinking of Dmitri at all when he looked up and saw a cougar on the further bank, watching him.

Gedeon went still without thought, muscles freezing and his fast breath going slow.

He'd seen other ailure before. His father had pointed them out, sometime, when they were on other pride's land. They'd never gotten too close though, always veered away. Father had warned them not to approach cougars, that cougars were traitors. That the cougars wanted them dead, and if they learned that any sabers had survived, they would find a way to burn them out, just like they'd burned out the rest of Gedeon's dead pride.

But the animal looking across at him didn't _seem_ threatening. 

He wasn't even that big. Nothing at all in comparison to Gedeon.

But Father had warned them. There had to be a reason for that, a reason for his father's fear. Perhaps the cougars were stronger than they looked, or faster. Perhaps their claws were longer, or harder than stone, enough to slice through the mountains as if they were made from fat. Or perhaps it was something more hidden, something tucked away and kept secret. Perhaps Saul'hrao had given them something for their betrayal, a bribe coated in blood and bile -- all the gifts that had once belonged to the saber fertile, to the children of Yrsa that had inherited her power. Inherited her grace.

But in that moment, standing in the water and the mud, Gedeon saw none of that.

He saw no extraordinary creature that he should fear. Nothing to run from. He heard Dmitri crash through the undergrowth and emerge out onto the river bank and come to a stop, and Gedeon smiled.

The cougar was staring at them across the breadth of the river, eyes wide and jaws slightly parted.

 _'...you are_ Hyl'maithen,' the cougar finally breathed in realization and Gedeon laughed, baring his fangs, feeling a rush of dizzying pleasure at the other cat's shock. At his sudden and unexpected understanding that the world wasn't as he had understood it to be. Gedeon knew what he was -- and he was enough to bring awe. 

It was what he deserved.

 _'We are,'_ he replied, wading over the distance, towards the shocked cat, and he was an idiot, an imbecile, to stand there and not move, to stand there and just _wait_ for Gedeon to get there and take his well deserved vengeance. Or perhaps he had that strength that Gedeon couldn't see -- that Gedeon wanted to eat from his heart. 

_'I don't-- How can you be...'_ the cougar asked as Gedeon got close, pulling his lips back.

 _'You didn't care then,'_ the saber growled, face wrinkling with pleasure and rage, bright and blue all at once, hungry and needful. _'You don't get to care now,_ traitor!'

With that he leapt, hearing Dmitri cry out in confusion behind him, fear, obviously, for this foreign beast. This cougar that had, for some reason, warranted their fear. It was nothing -- Gedeon was laughing as they struggled on the bank, the cougar kicking and snapping and trying to get up -- this cat was _nothing._

There were no bursts of light, no bombs or acid, no bullets and no power. The animal under him was just that: an animal, and no more important or significant than the vermin that they hunted for food. 

_'What are you doing?!'_ the cougar asked, as if he didn't know, as if he didn't _know,_ and Gedeon was still laughing, but this time with anger, snarling at the cougar's lies, at his false words and false tone, trying to save himself from the retribution he so rightly deserved. Gedeon's jaws snapped shut on air, aiming for the other cat's skin but finding none, the cougar having dodged.

 _'What are you doing--Stop!'_ he demanded.

 _'Shut up!'_ Gedeon returned, rear claws finding belly and rending, hearing the cougar cry out, seeing him arch and Gedeon took it, took the throat offered him. His neck snapped out, jaws latching on, and he felt his fangs, his great, curved fangs, sinking deep into flesh, cutting through it so easily. He felt the cougar seize and go still, just like a deer, no different from a doe or a hare and what was stopping them, then? What was stopping them from working their way across the landscape of the continent and snuffing these mongrels out like they did their prey? There was nothing special here, nothing sacred or divine. They were meat and little more, and there was certainly nothing to fear.

Gedeon drew himself up, away, when the body had gone still and limp, licking the blood from his lips as he looked over at his brother, Dmitri's ears switched back and low, like a timid rabbit, and Gedeon laughed at him.

 _'He's dead. He's not going to leap up at you,'_ he said.

_'But what will Father say?'_

_'Who cares?'_

Dmitri looked confused, baffled, as if he'd never considered that thought before -- never imagined that there'd be a time when he wouldn't obey Father's words, and he looked that way because of exactly that. Because Dmitri would always look for someone else to manage him. 

Gedeon lifted his head high, alpha high, and bared his bloody fangs.

 _'That was a beta -- one of their guard, watching their grounds,'_ he announced with certainty. _'That means there's nothing stopping us from going further. Just imagine what they must guard, Dmitri. All the finest game, all the best land... Imagine what we could find in there.'_

 _'We shouldn't, Gedeon,'_ Dmitri protested weakly.

 _'Why?'_ Gedeon snapped, infuriated by his brother's objections. 

_'Father said--'_

'Father _isn't here. And Father will be_ not here _forever, soon enough. Who do you want to please? Him? Or me?'_

Dmitri seemed torn, glancing back behind him as if their father were there, as if he weren't several miles behind them, pitching about like an idiot in their den. As if the decision warranted thinking about. Gedeon snarled and Dmitri backed up a few steps. Gedeon felt good, whole, feeling the blood in his fur and on his teeth and seeing Dmitri shrink back as he should. Gedeon felt like the king he knew he should be. 

_'...you, brother,'_ Dmitri finally replied. _'You. Of course, you.'_

And Gedeon's snarl tapered off into a smile, pleased.

 _'Good,'_ he replied, and turned away, walking into the darkened woods, into the land that smelled of _other,_ smelled of ailure that weren't them, weren't sabers. Like the stink and sweat of the day. Like betrayal. 

One day, Gedeon knew, he would take all of this from them -- not because of their betrayal, but because it was _his,_ because it was _owed_ him, and he knew that he could. Blood on his coat and a life on his paws, he knew himself in that instant. He was more than dirty burrows and endless traveling, more than some mangy two bit pride of siblings, half eaten away by the sickness they'd been born with.

He was stronger than that and as he walked over the moonlight, H'raksha promised him from the shadows: _One day, all of this will be yours. All of this and the Heavens, and never doubt it. You and I have waited too long for what they have taken._

One day.

One day he would be given all the things he was owed.

But that night he settled for the two fertiles that he found deep in the hunting ground.

\-----

Father had returned to himself by the time they got back, and he was displeased as expected when he woke from his fugue to find two newcomers. He yelled at Gedeon for an hour, asking him what he was thinking, what had possessed him. That they were supposed to stay hidden.

Gedeon had been unimpressed, and he could see the wordless glee in Dmitri's secretive eyes. He was too weak to lead, perhaps, but that didn't mean he didn't want this as much as Gedeon. They'd herded the fertile back across the river, and when Dmitri had seen them both stop and gasp at the corpse on the bank, he'd playfully dashed over to cut into it, enjoying the reactions he could eke out of the two cougars. Confusingly, neither one of them had been impressed, but Gedeon, unlike Dmitri, didn't care much for what they thought.

The first was a male fertile, a little on the small side and quivering like a startled rabbit, which made Gedeon's lip curl as his father ranted at him. The other one though, a female, sat still and straight with her head up, and her eyes never left his, wooden like the trees. He smiled to himself. He liked that one.

His father cuffed his head for not paying attention and Gedeon snarled, but no. No. Not yet.

He wasn't ready quite yet.

He hadn't left his father much choice though -- they had the fertiles now. There was no point in bringing them back. 

_'How long will they last anyways?'_ his father asked, and Gedeon wasn't sure if he was meant to answer. _'There was a reason they had us shot down. They couldn't risk the infection themselves. We carry man's sickness in us, and soon it will be their sickness too.'_

 _'What of it?'_ Gedeon asked.

_'Dominants survive the sickness, but we are stronger. How long do you think the fertile will last with it?'_

_'We've lasted long enough.'_

_'We aren't fertile. It's different.'_

_'How do you even know?'_ Gedeon pushed. _'You killed Mother and most of the fertile you saw die at the pride ground was by the hands and claws of others. You didn't stay long enough to see much of anything.'_

_'I stayed long enough.'_

_'Long enough to suppose something, but you don't_ know. _These fertiles could survive the sickness with us, become_ part _of us. We need mates. How are we to continue our line without mates?'_

 _'What good will children from these do you?'_ his father demanded hotly, at that, taking a step forward. _'They aren't even Dawnbringers, Gedeon. Whatever cubs you whelp from them will be halfbreeds and little more. Perhaps that will be enough for your siblings, but your mate, Gedeon, waits for you yet, and it isn't any cougar Mark my words, boy -- they will betray you in the end. You will regret this.'_

He stepped back when he was done and Gedeon had nothing in response to that. They'd been marching the land, back and forth, back and forth, all his life, following the light of the scar and looking -- not for answers, but simply the next day, the next night, and the assurance of their own survival. The tales that had fascinated him in his youth didn't hold the same magic. Or if they did, the world never made good on it. He would settle for a cougar if there were no more sabers to be found.

His father sighed and shook his head, looking over to where the two cougars had huddled.

 _'I should kill them,'_ he said.

 _'Should?'_ Gedeon asked, watching his father's mottled face, many things there, things left over from his life before Yellowstone. Gedeon had no such baggage. 

The older cat grumbled, turning his head away.

 _'You need to learn your lesson. And besides, I have not the stomach for it, today,'_ he replied, and Gedeon curled his lips. This was the father he hated -- nothing like the driven cat who'd raised them to hunt and to kill, who'd stood in the shadows and watched Gedeon burn, let him burn through the day to understand, to _learn._ This was whoever his father had been before the sickness, before the bombs and whatever they had done to them.

Whatever it was that lived inside of them that Gedeon could almost taste but never describe.

Gedeon had no such weaknesses. He was pure. Unblemished. A creature born of the sickness, and perfect in its design. 

He had two parents: his true father, and the sickness. They were what guided him.

This meager construct of a person was neither of those people, was just a weary old man in his father's body, and Gedeon got up, stalking away. 

Father would be back. He always was. It was just a matter of waiting.

\-----

In the weeks that followed, their pride headed east, aimless and without a goal, save to get away from the site of Gedeon's murder and the theft of the fertiles from their pride. Father seemed to think the cougars would come after them, and Chumani, the older female, seemed convinced of this too. In fact, she wouldn't shut up about it, how they would pay, how her pride would find them, how they would be killed, Hyl'maithen or not.

 _'Wouldn't you just love that,'_ Gedeon muttered to himself one day, under the edge of her rant, beginning to regret taking such a mouthy fertile. Hotah, the younger boy, at least knew when to keep his mouth shut, quivering and tripping along next to his sister.

All the same, Chumani had her benefits. It turned out, she was quite a good fisher.

Gedeon learned this the night they sat at the edge of a lake and she pulled a trout out with the hook of her claw, sending it flying over to the bank to flop and twist. Gedeon ran over and speared it through with his claws, watching its twitching slow and fade. 

_'You're good at that,'_ he commented.

 _'My_ pride _taught me,'_ she replied hotly as always. It had been two weeks since the fertiles had joined their small pride, and Chumani's ill temper had never faded -- she always spoke to him with an insolence he was at least beginning to find amusing. Gedeon knew better than to attack the fertile in front of his father -- it was the place of the alpha to discipline, and Chumani already wore several scars on her coat from their alpha's claws, but she never seemed to learn her lesson. Her determination to remain sullen and mouthy, even in the face of that punishment, stirred Gedeon's curiosity, which only seemed to rouse her ire more. Hotah had no such fire in him. He was boring and easy to scare, and Gedeon had been unperturbed to let him go to the others. 

Chumani, though, reminded him of the fertile that Father had spoken of. The one Gedeon had built in his mind, constructed until he was _sure_ it was out there. Chumani had no stripes, no markings of the dawn on her coat, and was plain as grass, yet she looked him in the eye as if she thought she could challenge him, as if she was worthy of it, and the thought amused him.

He ate his fish ravenously. The winter was coming in quick and the game already sparser, and Gedeon was grateful for a mouthful. He felt the fertile approach, her tiny paws resting in the marsh reeds next to him. When Gedeon glanced up, he found her gazing down at him, that same expected contempt there.

_'You eat like a pig.'_

_'I eat like a cat,'_ he retorted.

_'I'm fishing for Hotah. You brutes barely feed us anything--'_

_'It's almost winter, what do you expect? You don't hunt, you don't get food.'_

_'I am_ fertile--' __

 _'And that makes you entitled to what we win?'_ he asked with a scowl.

 _'How can you say that as you eat_ my _catch?!'_

Gedeon just jerked his head to the side dismissively.

 _'Think of it as recompense for all the food you and your pathetic brother consume.'_ It seemed only fair, with how much they took from the pride.

 _'Recompense?!'_ she yelled in disbelief, and Gedeon didn't know where she got the energy -- it seemed she was always infuriated about something. _'You kidnap us, take us from our home, take us away from the pride that sheltered and fed us and then have the gall to deprive us of just that? You starve us, walk us miles every day, and then complain that we are a strain on you. You took us, monster. You have no honor, no respect for yourself or your pride -- no joy in caring for what you take as yours. You are a child. You take what you want and throw it away just as easily. You take responsibility for nothing!'_ she spat.

Gedeon just laughed, finding it almost endearing how seriously she took herself, how seriously she took this, as if her words were of any import. He looked up to see her scowling down at him, so heated and determined, expecting him to fear her like he never could. He snorted and nudged half the fish over to her. She glanced at it consideringly and Gedeon stopped her before she could start.

_'Just eat it yourself. You caught it. You deserve to live. That's how it works.'_

_'Not on pride ground,'_ she said, almost sullen, but looking at the half-eaten fish consideringly.

_'Not on your plush throne. But here, in the real world, in the real wild, that is the law. So eat. If you must, fish up another for your little brat. In the meantime, he can learn how to pull his own weight.'_

She looked at him dubiously and he sighed.

 _'You can't well hunt up anything if you're starving,'_ he pointed out, and she seemed to accept this of all things, as logical. It was unclear how her mind worked. She shifted in ways he couldn't perceive, couldn't grasp. She was strange and nonsensical, and he wondered if all cougars were as illogical -- or that perhaps his father had been right. The fertile were childish and unbalanced. Emotional creatures that demanded the care of the dominants to keep them in line. Still, she sat down beside him, pulling the fish over the dead grass to lay against her paws, head ducking down to nip almost delicately at the carcass.

Gedeon huffed and she shot him a glare before returning to her task. He uncurled from where he was sitting, padding over to the bank of the lake, lowering his head to lap at the water, cold and almost icy, tongue brushing through it and disturbing the surface, sending ripples running, shifting out and disturbing the reflection of the moon as he stared into it.

Its bright, white light shone back at him, teasing him with the threat of warmth, but the scar never gave anything but silvery cool, nothing but the calm of the night, light only just enough to bath the world in. The beauty of Saul'hrao's inattention.

Gedeon licked his lips, turning around to see Chumani finishing up her meal, pulling every tiny scrap of meat from the carcass and then crunching on the tail -- it seemed, at least, she had enough sense to not leave anything behind. Gedeon walked back to her, sprawling out on the bed of dead leaves, hearing them crunch under his weight and glanced to the side, seeing Chumani grooming the fish oil from her face before changing her shape to walk to the lake's edge.

It was something that Gedeon had seen her and the other fertile do before, but it still turned his stomach, watching her fur fade out into markless brown skin and her claws turn into fragile human hands. Her four legs changed to two and she became _human,_ whole body changing like light, like fire burning up everything living and good and leaving nothing but ash and dirt behind.

 _'I hate when you do that,'_ he spat, watching the disgusting figure of her form as she squatted to wash her hands in the water.

"Perhaps I do it just to irritate you," she quipped in return. He growled.

' _You'd do best to_ please _me.'_

"And why would I do that?" she asked angrily, whirling to look over her shoulder at him, her face stupid and deformed in its humanity, possessed of that curse lain on their people: the curse of the shifting. It was something that the disease had cured Gedeon of before he was born. It was becoming harder for him to think of the sickness as something _bad_ \-- not in the face of all the strength it had given him.

Something that Chumani needed to be reminded of.

 _'Because one day I will be your alpha!'_ he responded instantly, rising to his feet and she crowed her laughter like a wicked bird, tossing her hair back and dark hair flying.

"Alpha! It is too sad to even mock! You? An alpha? You are barely an ailure. You are no more than a beast. An _animal_ \-- and one that should be put down in mercy."

Gedeon roared and charged forward, glad, at least, to see her flinch, wince inwards and put her ugly human hands up in front of her. Gedeon came to a stop though, paw raised and claws distended. They both stood still, stuck in a tableau, until Chumani looked slowly out from behind her hands, and Gedeon growled when he saw her lips twitch, a smirk forming almost as if against her will.

"...You won't," she announced, as if she had any authority. As if she had the right. 

_'Do not tell me what I will or will not do,'_ he growled.

"You won't, because you are not alpha. You are not alpha yet, and you still fear him."

_'He is my alpha. I respect him.'_

Chumani spat on the ground and got up, feet tracking through the mud.

"You respect no one." She stalked over to the edge of the forest, glaring back at him. "You give none and receive none, and one day, child of _H'raksha,_ you will be consumed by your own hubris. Your people will rise from their graves and reclaim their honor with their jaws around your throat."

Gedeon turned to respond, but she didn't give him a chance. Her form slipped back to that of a cat, golden tan disappearing into the darkness, and Gedeon was left along by the side of the lake, feeling impotent and infuriated in the face of her willful impudence.

And yet consumed by it.

\-----

They were far to the north when the winter hit, sudden and like a wall, the dried brown of the fall fading out into white. 

The temperatures dipped low, the pride huddling close during the day, most of them numb to it, but the two fertiles shivered at night when they were pushed to emerge from the burrows. They padded through fallen snow, crunching and compacting under their weight as they moved further north, up into the dancing lights of the sky, and Gedeon would watch them play in greens and yellows, reflections flickering over the white of the snow. 

The winter made the night even quieter than normal, even more insular, like they were the only creatures in all their world, their footsteps boomingly loud and the sight of them like a revelation. Varushka and Pyotr would rush ahead, chasing each other through the spray of flakes, playing through the long night, the sun kept captive for hours and the world belonging to them, to only them.

This was their world. The world they sought. The world where they could live without hiding, without secrets or shame. A world empty of all life save for them.

Only the fertiles seemed to lag.

As the weeks wore on and they moved further north, the game became more and more infrequent, the herds having moved south -- but south was dangerous, especially when men and other ailure would range further afield to find their kills. Their father, however, was no fool. Their usual prey moved south, but so did the caribou come down from the far north, and it was only a matter of bridging the gap. Making their way across a silent desert of snow to the find the herds, and Gedeon's family knew more than enough of weathering hardship.

The fertiles, though, as helpless and delicate as Father had always said, seemed to falter after only a few days without food. Gedeon knew what it was like to pass a week or more with a growling stomach, and still be able to hunt his food, but the fertiles seemed to be used to having everything brought to them, everything served to them, like they were royalty -- like spoilt children.

They would get over it though.

In a year, or two, they would know this life. They would _understand_ this life. They would be a part of their pride and know the value of hardship. And, eventually, finally, their pride would have new life.

Gedeon was confident that if he could survive the sickness in the womb, so could his cubs.

Chumani asked him about it one evening, Hotah tucked in against her side in the pine needles, the pride huddled down under a thick copse of trees. The earth was too hard, too frozen to dig through, but the polar night lasted for hours, allowing only a wan twilight in place of day. The cover of the branches was more than enough to keep them safe, and even that had more to do with shelter from falling snow than anything else.

 _'How can you live?'_ Chumani asked, and though the sound was only in his head, it seemed to echo in the silence. His siblings were asleep and his father was out in the field, wandering back and forth, sleepless and agitated. Gedeon watched him, eyes tracking his motions, before Chumani's voice pulled his attention.

She was leaned against his side, ostensibly for body warmth, but she would come to understand that they were pride. This was only a small step forward.

 _'What does that even mean?'_ he questioned in answer.

_'I mean -- how can you be alive? The Hyl'maithen were all killed. You should be dead.'_

_'You_ would _want that, wouldn't you?'_ he asked, wrinkling his nose, and the stubborn cougar scowled at him.

_'After what you have done? After taking my brother and I? Yes. Why would you think different?'_

_'I never thought different,'_ Gedeon snapped. _'I always knew your people wanted mine wiped from the earth.'_

 _'How can you say that!'_ she objected, and it didn't sound like a question, so Gedeon didn't answer. She continued anyways. _'My people_ still _grieve for the loss of the Skybreakers. I have grown up on tales of your fall, of the disgrace of man. I have lived my life against the backdrop of your extinction -- you cannot even imagine my disappointment to be here, now, seeing you as this. Reduced to_ this.' 

_'You never stop talking, do you?'_ he returned quickly, the heat of her words so inappropriate and disturbing in the cool and calm of the north, disrupting the long dark. He huffed and looked away again, seeing his father stilled in the center of the field, sitting down and head tipped back, looking up at the endless reach of the stars, the line in the sky that lead to the heavenly ground of the gods.

Gedeon let out a long breath, reclining back against Chumani.

 _'My father came from our lands. He remembers our home -- the snows of Siberia and the land that was given to our pride by the gods. Or, at least, sometimes he remembers it.'_ Gedeon remembered the stories as a child, remembered him and his siblings asking their father to tell it again and again. To tell them of Yellowstone. Begging him to tell them again because they'd never known anything but a nomadic life, a perpetual journey that never came to an end.

 _'He remembered the Soviets. He remembered the chemicals in the water. He remembered the testing sites. He remembered the treachery of man -- that nothing good could come of them. He thought, once, that we were coming to a better life. To a land that promised us freedom and safety. But he never_ forgot. _Not before the sickness.'_

Gedeon had always tried to imagine the ocean in his head, what it must have been like to be on water so vast that it stretched in all directions, limitless and eternal. He'd always thought of his father on that boat, he and the pride sailing to a new home and all of their troubles behind them. Gedeon always wondered what that must have been like: to look forward and see something more than the hazy blur of the world.

 _'So when the bombs went off, he didn't stay. My mother was slow with cubs, too stupid to get up fast enough when one of them rolled over to where she and my father were sleeping. He didn't leave her side.'_ Gedeon shook his head regretfully at his own father's foolishness, but it was hard to blame him for his actions then. For what he did before the sickness saved them. _'It was the acid.'_

 _'His face,'_ Chumani replied, something in her voice that Gedeon was incapable of identifying. Still, he nodded.

_'He was only hit on his face and right paw. My mother was not so fortunate. The others waited for dawn, waited for their human caretakers, but my father knew better. 'Never trust what walks on two legs. Never let anything slow you down.' It is the truth, the core of everything he taught us. So he took my mother and left pride ground with her.'_

_'Where is she now?'_ Chumani asked and she still sounded strange, and Gedeon gave her a puzzled look.

_'Dead. He killed her.'_

The cougar's head reared back, eyes wide as if this news were shocking, as if it didn't make perfect sense.

'How...? _How could he? Killing his own mate...'_ She shook her head, brow still tight and looking pathetic. It didn't look good on her. She looked nicer when she was angry. Gedeon just shrugged.

 _'She was slowing him down,'_ he answered, even though it was obvious. His mother had been weak, wounded from the acid, skin cracked and bleeding. In the story that Father told, her whining got worse and worse as the days went. At first he tried to comfort her, to help her. He always said that at first he loved her as much as he'd ever loved her.

But by the end he'd found her contemptible.

 _'He cut us from her belly and took us out of Yellowstone,'_ he finished, never telling the tale quite as well as his father could -- never giving it the _detail,_ the depth, but it served well enough. Gedeon was a hunter, a leader. Not a storyteller.

 _'What about_ you?' Chumani pointed out, that anger back in her voice and Gedeon didn't even know what he'd done this time. She was a temperamental cat, but he'd break her of that in time. She would make for him a mate, in the end. 

_'Didn't_ you _slow him down?'_ she continued.

 _'Of course.'_ He shook her head, confused as to how her pride had even _survived_ without understanding this, without understanding even the most basic rules of survival. It made sense that the cougars had allied themselves with the humans -- after all, there was no way they would make it in the wild without that support. Without being kept like pets. _'He took us with him and we slowed him down, but he reminded himself that we were the last of his line, now. The last of his family's blood. And one of the few Hyl'maithen left. He needed us to grow to take his revenge.'_

 _'Wait,'_ she stopped him short, and her paw pressed to Gedeon's leg. The motion struck him intimately. He liked it. _'One of the_ few? _Are you telling me there's more? There are other Skybreakers?'_

 _'According to him,'_ Gedeon said, tiring of the conversation, more interested in leaning into her touch. _'He says that the night before the bombs, a small hunting party went out to the hunting grounds. That they weren't there. That they never came back, even in the days that my father watched the rest of the pride. Even after the humans shot them down.'_

 _'That doesn't sound like you believe him,'_ Chumani observed. Gedeon jerked one of his shoulders again. 

_'I believe him. I just don't think they're out there anymore. He thinks that we will find them one day -- find uninfected fertile.'_ Gedeon had believed it, once. As a child. He'd believed in the image his father had painted for him, promised him, of a fertile that was _waiting_ for him. Waiting out there and looking at the same moon as him, perfect and pristine and still. A good fertile, obedient and rare. One who had inherited the gifts of Yrsa.

One who could pray to keep the sun down.

But Gedeon wasn't a child anymore. He didn't need fairy tales. The world was one unending trek, back and forth across the land, not searching for safety so much as avoiding danger, doing nothing else but staying one step ahead of the enemies that would hunt them down if they could but find them. There were no hidden goddesses, no great rewards at the end. There was no fertile waiting to be given to him when he found it.

The Hyl'maithen were dead and Gedeon was barely-living proof of that. And if he could find no rest, then he would take his pleasure in life where he could.

 _'And that's what we're for?'_ Chumani demanded, body leaning away from him and he didn't like that. His paw snatched out for hers, claws drawn, but she yanked her leg back and he speared only dried leaves. _'Because you can't find your dream fertile, you kidnap us?'_

_'We needed fertile. How are we to continue without cubs?'_

Chumani scoffed.

 _'Why should I care? You can't justify this. You don't_ get _to justify this.'_

_'It's what you're meant for.'_

_'How dare you!'_ She reared away.

 _'It would have been another dominant in your pride anyway -- what does it matter?'_ he asked, appealing to her sense of logic, but if she had any it didn't come to the surface now. She got up, sweeping her paw through the pine needles and scattering them across his face. He shook his head, eyes winced shut to avoid the dirt when the detritus hit him.

 _'Get up, little brother,'_ she said, speaking to Hotah, and after Gedeon had rubbed his paw over his face a few times, he looked up to see her nosing her skinny brother away, watching him blearily get to his feet, stumbling away to the other side of the copse. Chumani watched Gedeon the whole time she walked, as if he had the inclination to mount her right then, and settled down with Hotah. She put a paw over him and stared at Gedeon, unwavering in the darkness.

Gedeon huffed and shook his head, turning to look out at his alpha, the old cat laying in the snow now. His father had always told him that the fertile were fickle, foolish creatures, in need of guidance by their alpha and their mates, but Gedeon had never known exactly how true that was until he found himself face to face with their childish tantrums.

Even so, as flighty as she could be, he cared for Chumani. She was ruled by her nature, of course, but she was strong for a fertile, and that boded well.

In time, he was sure, she would care for him too.

\-----

It was a day, three months into winter and five weeks into their trek north, that Hotah stopped walking.

The pickings had been even slimmer, thus far, than previous years, surviving off of what they could find, what they could get. They'd only found a small group of scraggling caribou so far, and they'd managed to take down an older calf, the sabers running it down and Chumani straining to keep up. She'd done her work though. Got her share.

Their alpha had fought Hotah away though, clawing the fertile when he refused to stop shuffling close. 

Chumani had tried to put up her usual fight, and Gedeon tried to intervene -- he was not the same as his father, and this was not the lost, babbling remnant of Yellowstone -- but Chumani had learned too late not to question. She'd lost an ear that day, and Gedeon had told her to be grateful it was only that.

He'd heard her regurgitating food for Hotah later, foolish and wasteful, but he said nothing.

Since the caribou they'd gone back to ground hunting, digging into whatever dens they could find and pulling out the sleeping in habitants, ripping their claws raw on the frozen soil. Gedeon ate the snow throughout the day to keep his belly full. It was hard and unpleasant, but not unexpected.

Hotah had taken to gnawing on bark from the trees, apparently more willing to do that than learn to hunt, but Gedeon thought he'd turn around, stop being so stubborn. After all, there was no point in spiting them only to hurt himself. He would stop this childish protest and join in the hunts.

He was certain of that.

After all, Chumani could only spent so much of her time taking care of him. Especially if she was to be regna one day.

Dmitri had decided to take the younger fertile as mate, had grown quite attached to him, but even that hadn't seemed to be enough to push Hotah out of his malaise. If anything, he seemed even more withdrawn. Father had told them that fertiles were contradictory and confusing and Gedeon was only just beginning to get it. He could only suppose that he would learn in time. 

If he could survive the sickness, they would too, and, in time, they would become pride.

No living creature could hold out against their own self-interest for long.

And Gedeon knew that to be true, until he heard the _thud,_ a low, barely there impact, and the crunch of snow, and then one less set of footsteps behind him. Then another. Their group kept walking a few paces before Gedeon glanced over his shoulder.

Dmitri was standing in the snow, looking down at his mate who was just _laying there,_ as if they had the luxury of rest.

 _'Get him up,'_ Gedeon warned sharply, wanting this dealt with before their father had to get involved.

 _'Hotah?'_ Chumani asked, distress in her voice, but Gedeon blocked her passage.

_'Dmitri will deal with it.'_

_'The hell he will--'_

'Dmitri... _will deal with it,'_ he repeated, looking her hard in the eyes. When she just stood there and didn't respond, he nodded his approval, turning back to look at his brother. _'What's wrong with him?'_

 _'I don't know,'_ Dmitri said, padding back to Hotah's body. Gedeon knew the fertile wasn't dead. He could see each rib expand and contract, could see each breath as his chest worked, skin sunken in from his stupid refusal to eat. Hotah blinked, but his eyes just stared forward.

 _'Nevermind,'_ Gedeon snapped. _'I don't care. Just get him up.'_

 _'Hotah -- get up,'_ Dmitri urged, his voice going sickly sweet. _'Come on. We can't rest here. You have to walk.'_

He leaned down to butt his head against the fertile's, but Hotah just moved his head away, his breath increasing, as if afraid. Dmitri tried again, and this time Chumani darted around Gedeon to stand over Hotah, baring her teeth at Dmitri. 

_'Don't touch him!'_

Dmitri, for his part, just flicked his eyes to Gedeon, and Gedeon was glad of it. His brother knew better than to punish Gedeon's mate in his place. He shook his head minutely. Perhaps Hotah's sister could get him through this faster. They didn't have the time or energy to play the fertile's silly game.

 _'Get away from him,'_ Chumani hissed, and reluctantly, expression on his face like he'd eaten rotten meat, Dmitri took a step back. Gedeon smirked to himself, pleased at the obedience. Chumani stood still until Dmitri had moved away, given them space, and then she was quickly stepping off from Hotah's body, crouching down to lick the side of his face.

She murmured to him in a language that Gedeon didn't understand, words soft and hurried, tinted with a kind of desperation. Hotah didn't move away from her, but he didn't respond either, head shifting with her licks but doing little else. She whispered his name, settling down by his side.

 _'What's wrong with him?'_ Gedeon's father demanded, walking through the pride and approaching the two fertiles. Hotah shook a little, but did nothing else.

 _'I don't know,'_ Chumani replied quickly, worried, and her voice sounded strange like this -- trying to keep the peace instead of picking a fight. _'He just--...Give him a moment, please. Give us a moment.'_

 _'If we don't catch up to the herds soon, it'll be bad for_ all _of us. Get him up now, or we'll leave him,'_ Father declared simply, and Gedeon understood. It was the best way to deal with a child having a fit.

 _'Hotah...Hotah_ please,' Chumani murmured tightly, nuzzling in. _'Please get up, little brother...'_

But Hotah just lay there, apparently not realizing that the threat was serious. He would understand -- Father would make sure of that. For now, though, the eldest saber just stood there, looking down on the two fertiles, giving them precious few minutes.

Chumani's pleading got faster, higher, more desperate, her eyes flicking between Hotah and her alpha. Gedeon took the chance to watch her like this -- to see desperation in her eyes instead of fiery anger. To see her treat this as something of consequence, for once.

 _'Hotah, Hotah,'_ she squeezed her eyes shut after another moment of silence, of building tension, thickening around them and growing over Chumani's shoulders, and Gedeon could feel each heartbeat pass by. _'Please, baby brother, please, please you have to get up, get up, please, they're going to--'_

 _'Enough,'_ Father declared, voice like a landslide coming down the mountain and stopping everything in its path. Chumani looked up and let out a sob. _'We will move on. If the boy wants to live, he'll get up and walk.'_

 _'No, no, please you can't just_ leave _him,'_ Chumani pleaded, getting up to face the alpha. _'Please, he's just-- He's just a child! Let--Let me stay, just give me a few minutes--'_

Her breath was coming in panicked pants and Gedeon watch it come to a halt, sudden and still, when his father replied: _'No.'_

 _'No,'_ he said. _'We don't have time for tantrums, or to cater to them. We will move on. We will chase the herds and find food before the winter takes us, as we always do. Now, fall in.'_

With that he turned, not looking back even as Chumani screamed at him.

 _'No!_ No, _oh gods, let me stay just let me--'_ she begged, but Varushka was crowding in behind her, shoving her forward, pushing her head to Chumani's flank and making her move as she tripped over her paws. Chumani's head was twisted back over her shoulder to look at the prone form of her brother.

 _'Hotah!_ Hotah!' she screamed, voice a piercing shriek in Gedeon's head and he winced at the sound of it, walking onwards. She continued to plead and yell, screaming for her brother as they walked away. Gedeon could see the occasional scuffle behind him, Chumani trying to run back and getting caught by Varushka or Dmitri or them both, her cries long and continuous, ringing in his ears.

Behind them, Hotah lay in the snow, under the pale glow of the long polar night. He just stopped walking one day and never got up again.

 _'Don't worry,'_ Gedeon muttered to his brother later, Dmitri looking put out over the loss of the other fertile. _'We'll find you another mate. A_ better _mate.'_

Their pride didn't need that kind of weakness -- and there were more than enough fertile to be found.

\-----

When the sky turned to a hazy blue and purple, the sun just below the treeline and invisible, they began to search out a place to rest. Up here the sky never turned light enough to drive them to hide, but even if it wasn't enough to hurt, the light was still enough to be annoying, and they needed to sleep _sometime._ Their father stopped them under a tight bunch of trees on the edge of a snow field and Pyotr lazily made his way over to a tree trunk, plopping down unceremoniously, while the others milled about, pushing and pawing at clumps of pine needles until they'd made themselves something reasonable to settle down on.

Gedeon pushed together enough for him and Chumani to lay on together, but when he looked up, he saw the fertile sitting over at the edge of the trees, staring out into the twilight.

 _'You should sleep,'_ he said as he came to her side, but she didn't look at him. He bumped his nose on her shoulder. _'Come. I made us somewhere to rest.'_

She didn't move though, or reply. She just sat there, staring out as if the field held something fascinating. Gedeon stayed still, watching her for a long few minutes, waiting for a reaction, for something, but she gave him nothing and he snorted, shaking his head.

 _'Fine. Come to bed when you're done with whatever this is,'_ he said, turning around and padding away. He settled down on his bedding, vaguely irritated, but it didn't last too long, sleep taking him easily, as it always had.

He awoke though, in the middle of the day, and for no reason at all that he could determine. 

It was odd to raise his head, looking around through the milky twilight day, his siblings and father still asleep and all the world silent, as if it were filled with mist. As if all the world were asleep, save for him and he checked his side for his fertile, but she was nowhere to be found. He pushed himself to his paws, shaking a few errant flakes of snow from his coat before wandering over to the edge of the trees.

A few feet out into the field, Chumani was sitting, just like she had been when he went to sleep, but further out. He frowned, glancing at the sky but unable to tell how much time had passed. More than enough, though, he thought, and began to make his way out into the snow, his heavy footsteps audible in the crystal clear air.

Chumani didn't turn to greet him, and he stopped when he'd reached her side.

Surprisingly, she was the one who spoke first.

 _'He talked a lot,'_ she said, and Gedeon had no idea what she was on about. Chumani looked out at the field, out at nothing much at all, and continued. _'I was from our mother's first litter and Hotah...Hotah was from her second.'_

She laughed then, smiling, and Gedeon was even more confused.

 _'Our mother always said she should have named him 'Teetonka' -- talks too much. He always went on and on, about anything at all. To anyone who would listen. He was so...'_ Her breath hitched. _'He was always so excited about everything.'_

 _'Chumani--'_ he started.

 _'He wasn't like you knew him. He changed. So...So I wanted you to know he wasn't always like that. He wasn't always...scared and quiet. He wasn't always terrified of the world. He used to talk so much you just wished he'd shut up for a moment and--'_ Her head dipped, eyes squeezing shut.

 _'Chumani,'_ he said again, this time scoldingly. _'You_ know _we had to.'_

She laughed again, and this time it sounded off. Wrong. Not like laughter at all, and Gedeon didn't get it, didn't understand all her strange swings of emotion. 

_'Our mother used to tell such stories... So many stories about the holy cats. About meeting the Hyl'maithen when she was younger.'_ She shook her head and Gedeon was lost again -- he'd thought this was about leaving Hotah behind. Now it seemed to be about something else entirely.

 _'She was yn'duru,'_ Chumani said softly, throat clicking as she swallowed. _'...do you even know what that is?'_

 _'Of_ course, _I do--'_ he snapped angrily in response but she cut him off, her head swinging to glare at him with that same fire -- that same fire, but now strange and cold. Distant and not as bright.

 _'You know_ nothing!' she spat. _'You've never lived in a pride. You have no idea what it means! You've been taught words and ideas but you are not part of them! You know nothing. You are an animal. You are a_ child _, parading around as if you are grown. You are a little boy putting on alpha's clothes and declaring himself king. You think you understand yourself, the world. You think you know what it means to be an ailure, but you are nothing more than a fool, and all the world will see it.'_

Gedeon darted his head at her, lifting his paw, used to seeing her flinch, used to seeing her back down eventually, but she didn't this time. She just sat there, staring at him. Looking at him with those _eyes._ Those eyes that looked like the moon, scarred and beautiful and so so cold. The moon, that was supposed to be blind, but could see far more than Gedeon wanted it to.

He shuddered and took a step back. And for a moment, the two of them were still there, frozen in a tableau, and Gedeon was ashamed when she was the one able to break it. She rose to her feet, plodding out from under the branches and into the silvery snow under the polar twilight.

 _'Where are you going?'_ he demanded, or tried.

 _'Home,'_ she answered, and just kept walking.

 _'What--You can't--'_ he spluttered, completely thrown off. He galloped forward to catch up with her, to stand in her way, and he forced her to stop. 'We _are your family now. You can't go back there.'_

 _'I'm going home, Gedeon,'_ she said, simple and plain. Her head didn't move. She just stared at him. _'Move.'_

 _'You can't just_ leave. _You belong with us. With-- With me.'_

She laughed then, hard and mocking.

_'What is there to stay for now? My brother is dead. I have nothing left to protect. So I will go home. I will go home and tell our mother that her son is dead. Now get out of my way.'_

_'You're not making any sense!'_

_'Get out of my way, Gedeon!'_ she growled, and tears slipped free, tracing down her muzzle, and Gedeon could see them, just barely, the light reflecting off of the snow making the world glaring and bright.

_'Don't be sad.'_

She laughed again, shaking her head and letting it hang, and this time the sound was like sickness, and Gedeon didn't understand. He leaned forward, towards her.

 _'You don't have to be sad... I will be your mate. We will be happy together,'_ he declared plainly.

He wasn't sure what he expected his admission to bring, but it wasn't for Chumani to rear up, her face frightful and her mouth open in a roar, slashing him across his face with her paws, and it was so strange, so unexpected, that he stumbled back instead of fighting. Even in the few seconds afterwards, he did nothing, eyes wide -- not at the pain, it was a passing, dull thing, nothing at all in the scope of things, but at the fact that she'd _hit_ him. That she'd done it at all.

 _'This isn't about you, you selfish child! This has nothing to do with you! My brother_ died _today. He died today and you think this is about_ you? _I am not your mate. I would never_ be _your mate, and there is nothing left here to protect. I failed my brother, failed to protect him from you monsters, and I am done. I am_ done.' She stared at him through the long moment, and he raised his head again, feeling blood in his fur. 

They stood there in the snow, and Gedeon didn't know what to say. For the first time in his life he had nothing to say.

And then Chumani just walked by him. Like he was nothing.

 _'Stop,'_ he commanded weakly, watching her, but she just kept walking. _'Stop!'_

But she didn't obey him. He didn't understand. She was walking away like she couldn't even hear him. His lips curled up and face twisted and his body tensed.

_'Stop now or I'll kill you.'_

She halted, and for a moment, a second, he thought she finally understood. Instead, she tilted her head to look at him. Look him in the eye when she said: _'No.'_

And took another step.

He roared, leaping forward to sink his claws into her flank, biting her hip and she cried out, stumbling to the side but not yet losing her balance. Gedeon reared back, paws finding flimsy purchase on the show, panting into the open air.

 _'...I told you,'_ he said, and he wished it had sounded stronger than it was. 

Chumani watched him and he didn't know at all what to do when she turned away from him again, walking calmly -- the only difference being that she didn't put too much weight on one of her hind legs. That was all that he had effected. 

He growled and charged again, this time tackling her to the ground. They flailed in the snow, flipping over, but she didn't fight, not like he expected, and he didn't _understand._ He didn't understand why they did this. How they could be so _stupid._ His father had said, again and again, that the fertile weren't like them, that the fertile didn't know what they needed. But Gedeon had thought that Chumani, at least, was something wiser than that.

He felt her rear claws in his belly, weak from his first attack, and he twisted himself to the side and off of her. He didn't want to kill her. He'd threatened to, but he hadn't _meant_ it. They were going to be mates, after all. He didn't want to kill her. Just hurt her enough to show her the error of her ways.

She'd thank him, one day.

There were bloody gouges in her skin as she lay in the once pristine snow, slowly dying red in the pale moonlight, but her eyes hadn't changed. They didn't fear him, didn't respect him. They didn't see him as the alpha he knew himself to be. They looked at him like he wasn't even there.

Chumani rolled over onto her stomach and rose shakily to her feet. She had a harder time walking, this time, one leg dragging and pulling herself through the snow and it was ridiculous. Utterly, purely ridiculous, because what was she thinking? How was she going to walk the hundreds of miles back to her old pride like that? She'd die long before she got anywhere.

It was stupid and illogical and crazy and Gedeon shook his head.

 _'Come_ back,' he commanded. He tensed and squared his shoulders, not understanding why -- not understanding anything at all. Anger bunched in him, built in his muscles and he felt it hazy all through him, in his blood, sudden and swift and overpowering. _'I am your_ alpha _and you will obey me.'_

Chumani turned to look at him one last time, and Gedeon would always remember it as the last time he saw her. He would always remember the moonlight on her back, the scratches in her hide, and the way her eyes defied him. Defied him to the very end.

'You,' she said, _'are_ no _alpha.'_

Gedeon would always remember her in that last moment, that heartbeat second of a moment, but he never remembered killing her. He never remembered anything after the leap, after the spring of tension was released through him and he was in the air. When he looked down at her body, however many minutes later, she was wearing his wounds like she might have a shifting necklace, if she'd been good. If she'd been good to him.

He didn't remember killing her, only standing over her body, panting and winded, the anger still bright in his veins. Only remembered looking up and over at the shadow of the trees where his father sat and watched and waited, just as he had when Gedeon was small. He sat there, and said nothing at all, but Gedeon understood it well enough: just like that day in the clearing, feeling the light of Saul'hrao's judgment in him, he hadn't listened.

He hadn't listened, and his father had been right.

He pressed a paw to Chumani's limply moving head.

 _'It didn't have to be like this,'_ he murmured, and her eyes still looked right through him. Defying him even in death. _'I don't know why you made me do this.'_

And no matter how many years past, he could never quite figure it out.

The next day his father told him to forget about it. That the cubs he would have had with her would have been little more than halfbreeds, unable to survive the pains of the sickness, and that his true mate, the last fertile of their kind, was still waiting out there. Still waiting for them.

But Gedeon didn't think he believed anymore.

\-----

[1991]

If someone had told Gedeon that he was thirty six years old, he wouldn't have known what they meant.

He didn't know about the Earth and the Sun, beyond the tales of his people. He didn't know what a year was, beyond the switching of the seasons, in and out and always changing, one into the other, over and over again, an unending monotony. No one had ever told him about revolutions, about bodies in the heavens, great spheres of rock and gas and fire, atoms smashed into atoms in supernovas, creating elements spread out all through the universe.

And he certainly had never heard of a birthday.

He had no idea what his age was, not in any concrete terms, but when he was thirty six, he knew enough to know that he was grown. That he'd walked the earth for the entirety of his life, back and forth and back and forth and endless, a movement with no goal or destination in mind. And at first, he could accept that. When he was young, when he could still envision the future, he understood the idea of survival, the _goal_ of it and how it mattered.

But in the winter of 1980, he began to lose it.

And in the winter of 1991, he couldn't see it at all. 

When they trudged through the snow and the sleet, walking the mountains immemorable, the landscape always changing yet ever the same, trees passing by trees and all of them identical, meaningless. Meaningless. Every step, every breath, every day and night they kept living.

An existence without anything behind it. A life that existed only to perpetuate itself.

This time they were headed west, but it hardly mattered. It could as easily been any other direction, any other place. His father was going slow, slower than normal, his aging body picking tenderly through the snow, and it only made the pointlessness of it all even more irritating.

 _'When are you going to do it?'_ Varushka asked, entirely inappropriately and shuffling up to his side, as if it were a good idea.

 _'Shut up.'_ He snapped at her impatience, her imprudence, and she danced away with a cruel look, smile and teeth and too much pleasure -- and that was always her problem. Too involved in the moment. Too involved in making herself happy in the present to even blink about the future.

But he knew that she wasn't the only one waiting. Dmitri was also watching him expectantly, as if he'd be tasteless enough to do it in front of all of them. Only Pyotr, stupid and blind, continued on with no idea of what was happening, running up to their father and butting heads, only to get shoved back.

Only Pyotr, and, Gedeon thought, their father.

Their pace slowed more with each passing day, and Gedeon could see the limp in his father's steps, the way he hesitated when going down a slope, the way he skidded on ice and the way his breathing creaked during the day. But every nightfall he got them up, same as always, and moved them out, moving them forward, and Gedeon was so distracted watching their father that he didn't notice where they were _going,_ not until he realized they weren't moving with their usual capricious twists and turns. They weren't weaving back and forth across the land, following a scent trail of prey or simply wandering in whatever direction seemed to please them, but instead were headed straight west, a continuous line.

Towards what, Gedeon didn't know.

The night before it happened, Gedeon walked next to the older saber, watching the way his father's coat sagged and was speckled with grey. The alpha was muttering to himself, scarred face slack and dead eye staring endlessly, as it always did.

 _'There is hope, my son,'_ he said, mumbled, and Gedeon wondered if he was even speaking to him or not. _'There is hope. They're out there, I know. I know it. The day of our people will come. We were always destined to. It is our place. Place in the stars, with the ones that died before. We ran the sky, my son. We ran through the wind and the fertile were beautiful, so beautiful, the way they controlled the sun. One day we will find them again. We will find them and they will pray to keep the sun down, and the world will be ours forever. Forever, my son. Forever--'_

 _'Yes, Father,'_ Gedeon responded a little dryly. The old cat continued to talk, and Gedeon only half listened.

By morning, they were barely moving, shuffling forward and getting nowhere, their father's footsteps going in a straight line but smeared through the snow. Gedeon could feel his siblings eyes on him, waiting.

Waiting.

But at daybreak they were curled under the lee of a stone, tucked in against the ice, and their father dreamed of whatever it was that he dreamed about.

It was only the next night, standing on the top of a ridge and looking out at the darkened landscape, that Gedeon realized what was happening, and his cloudy eyes widened, looking at his father's disfigured countenance. 

_'You're taking us back to Yellowstone,'_ he said, not a question, and they'd never gone back. Not once. Gedeon knew the pride ground of his birth only by story, never by sight. In all his life, he'd never seen that land. The land where his people had met their end. Father had always said it was dangerous there. That the humans knew to hunt them there. 

The surprise was enough to throw Gedeon off.

 _'Once more,'_ his father replied, looking out at the shadowed vista, a patch of wetness running from the side of his face, the lips there numb and usually drooling. _'I had to see it once more.'_

 _'We should turn around,'_ Gedeon said, but without much conviction. He couldn't lie. He was curious. There was a not insignificant part of him that wanted to climb down the slope and venture out into Yellowstone, to crawl through the brush there and see it. To be a _part_ of it, like all the ones who'd died had been.

 _'Perhaps it will be enough,'_ his father replied nonsensically. 

Gedeon looked at him questioningly.

 _'I loved her, you know. Before the attack. She was my greatest joy. I would have never--'_ He hung his head, the living eye tearing up and shutting and Gedeon curled a lip, knowing his father wasn't in there anymore. _'It was whatever they did to us. Whatever they did to_ you. _You don't know any different. This has been your whole life. But me... I remember. I remember what it was like to not be angry. What it was like to look at the world and feel something other than rage. I never wanted to hurt her. I tried to lick the acid from her fur as it burned her -- stupid, useless, wasn't worth it -- licking it from her to save her, burned my mouth apart.'_

He shook his head wildly, lifting it again.

 _'I tried to help her. But it was what they did to me. Whatever spell they worked. I couldn't see her anymore. I could only see the weight around my neck, stupid--useless-- Slowing me down. When the haze leaves, when the rage pulls back, I can almost remember...'_ He looked over at Gedeon. _'But you don't have even that. You were born sick and will ever be. I will go down to Yellowstone tomorrow and find the pride ground of our people. I will die where they died and leave my bones to the sun, and perhaps, perhaps, Saul'hrao will forgive me -- but you will forever wander this earth. You will forever carry man's curse.'_

Gedeon snarled, frill curling up.

 _'So what was this? What was the point of all of this? Leading us around on this stupid journey, telling us about our destiny and how we'll find this magical fertile -- what was the point? When are we supposed to bring our people back? When are we supposed to bring our vengeance? You told us! You told us every night how we were being raised to fight, but we've been grown for ages! And yet you waited! We never went to fight the cougars, we never went to kill the humans. We never did_ anything! _And now you're going down there to die? What was the_ point?!'

His father looked him square in the eyes and shrugged his shoulders.

_'I didn't want to be alone.'_

_'I'll kill you, I'll kill you, you stupid son of a bitch,'_ Gedeon growled, yowling as he crashed into his father, sending them tumbling down the slop and into a ditch, the dirt there loose with pebbles and they skidded.

He expected it to be easy, but his father's large paw impacted the side of his head and sent him tumbling. He was used to being cuffed, but not with claws and he stumbled to his feet, shaking his himself. His father was watching him, a smirk on the still living side of his face, and this was his father, his real father.

 _'Stupid little cub, lost in the woods.'_ He paused to cough hard, the fall apparently having knocked something loose, but it wasn't enough to keep his father down, unsurprisingly. The older saber pushed himself unsteadily to his paws. _'Now go and get your worthless siblings. It's only a little further. We're almost home.'_

They were going together. That was why their father hadn't split off and gone alone. All of them were going to go, so that he wouldn't have to die alone. So that he would never have to be alone. All of Father's promises of destiny were empty ones that he'd said to himself: they were meant to bring revenge, but it had only been a fantasy.

Something to entertain and soothe him in his worst hours. 

In their father's head, they weren't a pride. It was only him left -- the last of the Hyl'maithen, and he was going home. The whelps that had followed him around were little more than something to keep him company, sick and diseased as they were.

He saw the change then, saw his father blink and go soft, that pained look etched across his features as he took a slow, pained breath.

 _'My son, my son...'_ he murmured. _'Come with me. Come home with me.'_

 _'Never trust what walks on two legs,'_ Gedeon hissed. _'...Never let anything slow you down.'_

 _'Gedeon,'_ he replied, full of love, and Gedeon launched himself at his father, claws catching on skin and pulling it as if on hooks, and they tumbled over again. This time Gedeon's snapping teeth found purchase, after grasping only air and tufts of fur, he finally found flesh, hot and wet and salty, going bruise soft under the pressure of his jaws, felt the blood explode into his mouth. It tasted bitter, nothing like the taste of prey, and Gedeon took little pleasure in it, save the pleasure of knowing what he did.

His father twitched under him and only slowly went still. It took awhile, longer than Gedeon would have thought for an old cat, sick with cold and age, frailty buried somewhere under his muscles. It took awhile, before Gedeon opened his mouth and spat, let the blood drool from his jaws. At his feet, his father lay twisted, like something not quite real, like something that had never been alive.

Above him he heard his siblings skittering down the bank, pebbles shifting, and their paws landed hard on the icy earth, jumping over the ditch. 

Varushka approached the edge looking down at them.

 _'Is it done?'_ she asked, and Gedeon didn't reply. Instead he turned and scrambled up the banks, walking away, stalking away from the ditch and over towards the trees. He could sense Dmitri and Varushka keeping pace with him.

 _'Gedeon, what--'_ Dmitri started, but Gedeon cut him off.

 _'It doesn't matter,'_ he said, growled. _'It was all lies.'_ He paced back and forth.

 _'What was all lies?'_ Dmitri asked -- stupidly, like the idiot he was.

 _'It doesn't matter. Do what you want. I don't care,'_ Gedeon spat, no interest at all in continuing this charade. No interest in taking his father's place as the leader of this merry band of meaningless ingénues, too gullible to ever question.

Gedeon looked over at the ditch one last time, only to see his brother, to see Pyotr standing with his head lowered, jaws working, and Gedeon's brow furrowed, confused only for a moment before he made out the unmoving form of their father, bathed in the moon.

Pyotr's jaws smacked together, yanking at meat and swallowing, barely chewing, as usual. He paused when he seemed to sense Gedeon there and he raised his head, looking over at his brother, and the two of them just stood there. Gedeon gazed into his brother's strange white eyes, always wide and vacant, staring forward mindlessly. Slowly, Pyotr's lips pulled back. His mouth stretched into a toothy grin, bits of their father's grizzle hanging between his incisors and pre-molars, blood dark and clotted with death. 

He just stood there, staring at Gedeon, seeing nothing, his grin manic and like a child's. Gedeon's face twisted into a scowl and he refused to shudder, instead turning to walk angrily away.

To walk, for the first time, back into Yellowstone.

Behind him he heard the wet _smack-smack-smack_ of Pyotr's jaws tearing into dead meat.

\-----

The sky was cloudless and clear, open and expansive, and the moon gibbous and waning, hanging over the mountains, still as death. The air howled through the valleys and down the canals of the rivers, across the fields strewn with white, whistled through the branches of the trees as it stirred them. 

It wasn't anything that Gedeon hadn't seen before, here or there, some corner of the long land they'd traversed all their lives. It was all the same, in the end. 

Somehow he'd thought that Yellowstone would be significant. 

Different.

Important.

He should have laughed -- of course it would just be more of the same. It was only just that this, too, was nothing but a fiction. He wondered about the ancestral lands of his pride and if they were anything like he'd always imagined, or if they were just this: just the earth and the sky and nothing else. 

The weather must have been warmer during the day, because the top layer of snow had melted and refrozen, making it harder, icy, so that each step he took cracked the top and sunk down loudly, crunching into the quiet. He could hear some other noises though -- the fall of loose snow from branches, twigs cracking and shifting under weight, the rustle of pines as night creatures flitted in and out.

A bountiful land, even in the white.

Gedeon made his way down a ridge and out to a river, the edges of it frozen but the center churning over rapids, and he leapt from rock to rock, avoiding the freezing water, his claws scratching on stone, until he reached the further bank. There was no destination in mind, and he had to recognize the irony of that, but just continued walking anyways, no strong intent to do anything at all.

Clear in his mind were the stories of his youth -- of his father's escape from the bombs and the guns, of his unusual birth. Of his pride's journey from the home of their ancestors to here and everything they left behind. Of the gods and the heavens and of H'raksha, the survivor. The one who'd never given in.

When he was young, Gedeon had thought of his father like H'raksha. Born full of woe and wrath, surviving with his belly on the ground _but still surviving._ Willing to shame himself, willing to crawl into the shadows and hide, because victory was superior to honor, and he would come back. He'd come back eventually after all. It was just about biding his time. And when that time was right, he would emerge again, with his children behind him, still bearing the very sickness that man had given them, that they'd _survived,_ survived every day and carried with them. They would come from the shadows and the world would know their vengeance.

Except they'd gotten older and older, and Gedeon had looked around and seen he and his siblings grown. More than just prepared to fight but also _ready._ He'd accepted the idea, though, that perhaps his father had other concerns in mind. Something that he could see that Gedeon couldn't. After all, his father had come from Yellowstone, had some from the land across the sea.

His father had saved them, groomed them for revenge.

The idea that it was all hollow words, just shouting at the sky to get it out, just a scared old man complaining about all his past grievances, had never occurred to Gedeon. He'd always been waiting. Waiting for the word. Just waiting to be told it was time.

And he didn't know he was thirty six years old, but he knew he'd been waiting his entire life for something that was never going to come. 

There was no glorious rebirth for their people.

Just five diseased old cats wandering around uselessly, living just to say that they were.

Four, now.

Gedeon's lip curled and he spat, jogging through the trees until, for no reason in particular, he broke out into a full run, snow kicking up behind his paws as he galloped, body spreading out lean and long and muscled, a creature built to survive, if nothing else. A creature built to survive _and_ nothing else. The branches flew past him, shadowy boughs in the night, black and jagged, hitting against his coat as he brushed by, eyes wide and tearing with the wind, face twisted in a rictus of anger and hate.

He wasn't in pain. He wasn't sad. He just _hated._

He wanted his revenge. He wanted to be real. He wanted to take the world and tear it asunder, break it like it tried and failed to break him. He wanted to leave his scars in the earth, deep and ragged, unending furrows of blood and pain and ripped up flesh. He wanted to have a purpose, a _destiny._ He wanted the gods to look at him, to recognize him, to respect him, to fear him. He wanted his justice. He wanted to have all the world under the weight of his paw.

He wanted to kill his father again.

He raced through the woods with an intensity that even his accomplished body couldn't keep up for long but he pressed it anyways, the snow passing under him like a blur, shadows and light shifting and playing under his paws. He ran until his anger had shifted from that fiery passion to a cold and useless ember, bitter and horrible in his chest, unhelpful and unleaving, something that _lingered_ long past need or desire.

He slowed, panting hard, his jaws parted and whiskers sagging, his tongue resting lightly on his incisors. The energy his body thrummed with from the run faded all too fast, running out of him like water, sinking away into the ground and leaving only that malaise. The dull sensation of powerlessness, the feeling he hated the most of everything in the world.

The knowledge that whatever he did next didn't matter. Had never mattered.

He looked around and saw carvings on the trunks of the trees, gouges in the barks left by claws -- ancient symbols and pictures, and Gedeon laughed, a short bark.

He'd found pride ground. 

He'd found his home, thirty six years empty and abandoned, and thirty six years too late.

He flopped down in the snow, and maybe his father had had it right. Perhaps this was his next step: to lay here and wait for the sun to come up. Perhaps this time Saul'hrao would kill him. Perhaps he would just lay here until dawn came in, flooded the aching corpse of his people's land and bring Gedeon to rest with them, where he should have died thirty six years earlier and still in his mother's belly.

He had no desire to rise again, and he shut his eyes.

And at first, all he heard was his still thumping heart, his still pumping blood, and the rasp of his own breath. All he heard was the minute crunch and shift of the snow under him as his body heat melted it in parts, hot air blasting from his nostrils.

And after that, the silence.

Until a short, sharp little cry came distantly, barely there at all, and one of Gedeon's ears flicked.

The silence descended again and then there was another sound, the same as the last, something animal and alive, and unlike anything Gedeon had ever heard before in any wood or forest or field. A sound he had never heard before in all his travels, his endless trail across the earth. Something new.

His head popped up off of the ground, eyes flashing open again as he looked around, his ears held upright and alert. He stilled his breath and waited, and, for a few long seconds, thought he'd lost it, that he wouldn't hear it again, but then-- There it was.

He jumped to his feet, trotting forward in the direction the noise had come from, trying his best to keep his footsteps quiet, despite the best efforts of the snow, to track the sound. It was intermittent and sometimes went quiet for far too long, leaving him waiting and adrift, searching for it directionless.

Then it would come again and he'd get a little closer, each time the noise getting louder, clearer, and each time his pace picking up, climbing up a long hill, incline increasing, until he was jogging, twisting through the trees. He kept moving, kept following the sound without a care for caution, without a care for his well being, because what did it matter -- and most of all, what did it matter in the face of something _new?_

The sound came again, this time unexpectedly loud and close, and Gedeon came to a sudden stop, paws skidding in the snow and throwing it up in the air. He was at the edge of the woods at the top of the hill, the forest a black line surrounding a jut of rock, a mound growing out of the mountainous ground, the edges of it covered in snow. 

In front of the mount was the body of an ailure -- there was no mistaking it. It was long and so skinny that every bone in its body stood out, it's skin hanging frozen and sullen between each rib and like a hollowed out drum over the belly. It had obviously died not too long ago, its body only marginally picked over by scavengers and reasonably hidden in this place. Maybe only a few days dead, and probably from starvation in the cold.

But that wasn't what was important.

What was important was that the body was that of a fertile -- a fertile with stripes. 

A _saber._

His eyes widened, staring down at it, spread out in the snow, his jaw parting slightly. The fertile didn't look aged, not aged enough to be part of the hunting party that his father had so often talked about. But it was, perhaps, old enough to be a child of one of those original sabers. Fertile sabers who'd never been infected.

His head snapped from side to side quickly, looking for more, for others, for the rest of this tiny remnant of the Hyl'maithen -- the _pride_ he'd been searching for, waiting for, his whole life, and they were _here,_ they were _here_ and he'd finally found them. He would finally take his place as alpha, as he'd always deserved.

But no matter how many times he looked, searched the clearing, there was nothing but the trees and the open stretch of snow leading down the other bank of the hill. Then the sound, the screechy cry, perked his ears and his head swiveled around to look at the mound of rock. Once he knew where to look, it didn't take him but a heartbeat to find the source.

Five cubs curled together under the overhang of the rock, settled into a spot where the snow had been cleared out and the ground left dry for them to sleep on. Four of them weren't moving, and it took Gedeon a minute to see that only two were as still as their mother -- the other two were shivering, huddled on the ground.

The fifth cub was standing over its siblings, crying out for help.

Gedeon stared, started when the cub called again, creaky and tired, obviously having been calling for a long time, and Gedeon realized, quite suddenly, that he hadn't seen an ailure cub since he was one and looking at his own siblings. He was so shocked, so senseless with it, that he didn't even know what to do for a moment, didn't even know what his next step was supposed to be because he didn't know what to _want_ out of this.

Until he saw one of the two shivering ones -- still alive but barely -- one of the ones on the ground, being protected by its dominant sibling, had no fangs.

The other two had the tell-tale teeth jutting out from under their lips, but that one, that one... That one was a fertile. A living, breathing, uninfected saber fertile, slowly freezing to death in the winter, unprotected and now, prideless.

 _'...we are not alone,'_ Gedeon said, not even knowing if they were old enough to hear him, understand him, but he saw the strongest one turn to look at him, and the other little dominant raise his own head, staring across at Gedeon, but Gedeon was looking only at the fertile. _'We are not alone, you and I... Both orphans of the same pride.'_ His head quirked slowly to the side. _'Two sides of the same coin. You and I are one. We are_ family.'

The fertile raised its head and looked at him slowly, until he could see its shaded hazel eyes and the burst pattern orange of its underbelly. It watched him without guile, without judgment. As blind to his sins and beautiful as the moon.

It breathed in and Gedeon took a step forward, out of the forest.

In the next second though, light swung sudden and painful across the clearing, and Gedeon almost yowled as he stumbled back into the darkness, clawing at his eyes to get it out. He heard strange noises -- clicks and snaps and then the sound of weight on snow -- but he wasn't able to look up again until several seconds later.

In front of him, one the other side of the hill, was one of the human contraptions. A car. He'd seen plenty enough moving along down the roads, watching from afar as his family moved through the wilderness, but never this close, never this intimate. It was sitting still but rumbling like a growl, shivering a little in the air, and Gedeon thought it must be able to feel cold.

Out in front of it, in front of its terrible, glowing eyes, were two men dressed in heavy clothing and wraps, fastened tight to their bodies, with strange coverings on their heads. Gedeon didn't know much about humans, beyond that they weren't to be trusted, but he knew enough to know exactly what they held in their hands: the long sticks, the guns that humans wielded to end life from afar.

And Gedeon was strong and brave and a great fighter, but he was no fool. He shuffled back further into the undergrowth, away from their searching eyes. He knew better than to challenge the gun.

"And you're sure that you haven't seen any others?" the shorter one asked, looking back at his companion, who nodded.

"I've kept an eye on the area for twelve hours. Nothing else in or out -- just this one and her cubs." He was taller but he was obviously deferring to the other(who must have been the alpha), dipping his head respectfully. "They won't make it long without their mom... Brought them some ground up deer meat earlier, but they're already fading fast. Two of them were dead when I found them."

"You know the protocol, Stanley. You should have called me earlier," the first one chastised. "But I suppose it doesn't matter..."

And Gedeon started when he saw the man lift the gun, aim down the sight at the cubs. For a second he almost ran out into the clearing, despite the guns. Thankfully, he didn't have to.

"What're you doing?!" the taller one(Stanley) shouted, running up and putting his hand on the shorter one's arm, and out of the glowing light of the car's eyes, Gedeon could make out the taller one's face better -- skinny and boney, with a strange crop of hair just below the nose. He wore circular things on his eyes, bound to his ears and across the bridge of his nose.

"What we have to," the shorter replied, sounding baffled, but he was looking at his inferior. Gedeon didn't know why he let himself be questioned, and couldn't help but judge him, but at the same time was grateful for it.

"They're _children,_ Roger. We can't just kill them. This isn't the same as an injured deer or a sick coyote. They're... _people._ This isn't right."

"It's not right," the leader agreed. "Do you think I _want_ to do this? But you weren't there, Stanley. You didn't see what happened to them when they got sick. The things they did... The other local prides _told_ us to do this. To keep the virus from spreading. And it blows, I know. Lord knows I'll be going home to some whiskey tonight but... This is the only kindness I have for them."

"Wait, wait," Stanley said, putting up his hand, the other still holding his gun stick at his side. "Just... Look." He gestured over at the corpse in the snow. "The mother was still alive. The virus killed all the females, right? Only the males survived. The corpse doesn't have any long teeth, so it must be female. And if she was still alive, if she lived until now, then she must not have been infected. That means her kids could be okay!"

"You don't _know_ that! She's dead, Stanley, and we won't know what killed her until after the necropsy. It could _be_ the virus."

"And what if it's not? Since when do _park rangers_ shoot first and ask questions later?"

The leader sighed, bringing his arms down, gun pointing away then down, hanging in his hands. Flicks of movement, flashes of light around them caught Gedeon's eye -- snowflakes, lazily falling through the beams of the car's eyes, dangling slow in the air. Above them a cloud had covered the night sky, blacking it out. The snow fall was light and silent, flakes drifting back and forth in the still air.

"...the hell d'you suggest we do then, Stanley? You know what the CDC are gonna do, once we call them. And I can't just leave them. Infection aside, it'd be cruel. You're not wrong -- they are children, and I can't just leave them to starve to death in the snow."

By the rock, the other dominant, which had been shivering next to its siblings, rose from the ground. The first one, the bigger one that had been standing over them, jerked forward, but the smaller one continued forward, creeping warily out into the snow.

Stanley turned towards them, and squatted down, black boots shiny in the snow. He extended a hand, offering it out. The bigger dominant hissed protectively, standing over its fertile littermate, but the smaller dominant inched forward, ears and body low to the ground. It stretched its neck out as far as it could, head extended to tentatively sniff the offered hand, only for a second, before jerking back and skittering back to his siblings.

"See?" Stanley said, looking back over his shoulder at the other human. "Roger... I don't think they're infected."

"And I'm not _disagreeing._ I'm just sayin' -- what the hell do you want me to do about it? We have our orders."

For a moment, they were both quiet, flakes falling sparse around them, twinkling in the air, then Stanley spoke again.

"...let me take them," he said, and Gedeon saw Roger start.

"Stan, you can't--"

"My wife and I, we got plenty experience looking after things. We can keep an eye on them. Make sure that they're not sick. If we're with them all the time, we'll see if something's wrong. We can watch them."

"And _what?_ What the hell will you do then?"

"If they're fine we can...we can take care of them. We don't have any children, and you know after Deb's surgery..." The human in the snow shrugged. "We can keep them safe."

"And if they _aren't_ fine?" Roger asked, and this time the silence hung sharper and the question went unanswered, left there in the frigid air. Gedeon's eyes flicked back and forth between them.

Stanley stood up, looking back at his leader expectantly. The shorter man threw an arm up in the air.

"And we do what? Cover it up, keep it a secret? What the hell am I supposed to tell the director?" Roger asked, voice sounding strained, and Gedeon had never seen such a weak alpha. He didn't even know what to make of it.

"We take the cubs back down to the station. Get them warm, get them hydrated. Then...I'll get Deb to come and pick them up. She can take them back to the house, and you and me... We come back up here and we bury the bodies."

"You're asking me to risk my _job,_ Stan."

"I'm asking you to do the right thing."

They fell quiet again, and Roger lifted his hands, pressing them into his hips, and Gedeon couldn't help but notice how awkward and ugly and ungainly a body was when it was stretched out like that, stretched upright and not on all fours. They looked _wrong,_ like an abomination.

"...Get the cubs," Roger said finally. He didn't say anything else, just walked back towards the car, opening the back of it. 

In the end, Gedeon could only watch as the tall human picked up each cub, carrying it over to the car and placing it in the back. He wanted to run out there, to get _his_ cubs, _his_ fertile, _his_ pride, but the guns were too much of a risk, and he couldn't take the chance now -- not with the knowledge that there was hope out there. The future he'd given up on, just waiting for him.

The Stanley human walked over to the lee of the rock last of all, crouching down to touch each of the dead cubs, hand lingering on their necks, and Gedeon thought it might be some kind of human death rite, but Stanley just let out a sigh, a disappointed sound, before pushing himself to his feet.

When the car backed up, turned its strange, circular feet and began to move back down the hill, following in the tracks it had left before, Gedeon bounded forward, trying to keep up, trying to not lose sight of his fertile, but even with the snow and ice, he still couldn't match the car, and when it made it down to a road there was no chance. 

Gedeon stood still on the side of the flat rock of the human passageway and watched as his pride was taken away from him.

He expected to feel disappointment or anger, or maybe even something like the grief his father had exhibited on those nights when his weakness came back, twisting and turning in the tight walls of their burrow, pleading for forgiveness.

But instead, Gedeon felt...elated.

He felt full almost to bursting, even with the loss, because he knew now. He'd been given a _sign_ and he knew.

The gods had plans for him.

It hadn't been a lie. There really had been a fertile waiting for him, given to him by the Heavens -- by all those above who were waiting for the sun king to fall. Who were waiting for Gedeon to rise and take his vengeance and take what H'raksha never could: the mantle of the heavenly pride. The place of alpha above all others.

And it wasn't time yet. It wasn't time for everything come to fruition, because they'd taken the fertile away again, but they'd seen him despairing, seen him giving in, and they'd sent him a sign, a message: _don't give up yet._

And Gedeon didn't intend to. Now that he knew, now that he'd seen, he had no intention of just laying in the snow and letting the light take him. 

He had to get back to his pride, to his pride that he was now _alpha_ of, that he ruled in preparation for his place in the sky, and he had to tell them what had happened. He had to tell them of what waited for them.

The run back through Yellowstone seemed to take half the time it had when he entered. There was so much on his mind, his thoughts rushing faster than his paws, that he barely noticed where he was going save to stop and scent his trail back from time to time. He almost went the wrong way several times, lost as he was in his thoughts.

He eventually made it back to the edge of the park, slowing his pace as he found the scents of his siblings, just up the rise and he had to assume waiting for him. Waiting for their alpha.

Before they went to them, Gedeon returned to his father's corpse. It wasn't much to look at, holes and chunks torn into it, eaten away, but the necklace was still there -- the scrap of haggard cloth, and the tiny skull of Gedeon's infant sister, born still and unmoving when their father had pulled them all from the womb.

She had been, or would have been, a fertile. 

The only fertile of their litter.

Gedeon reached out, claws carefully slipping under the cord, working it up against the fur and torn flesh, until he could pull it off of his father's head.

It took longer to struggle into it, to get his nose into the loop and get it to work over his ears and frill, but in the end it lay there, and he could feel the weight of it against his fur.

Now, it was only a matter of waiting -- waiting for the day that the gods would show him his design, his purpose.

His destiny.

\-----

[2013]

Gedeon lay on the loam, breathing in the thick scent of summer. The sun had set only a few moments ago, the world still ruled by it as it drifted hazily through the height of the heat, through the days that were far too long and the nights far too short, and Gedeon longed for the calmed caress of the autumn, the unearthly still of the winter, and the endless night that had once been promised to him.

He blinked and raised his head when a noise caught his attention, a distant roar traveling through the skies that always and immediately made him think of Brigna and the betas of the heavens, running through the clouds.

But it was just a man built machine, a metal bird made by human hands to climb through the sky, as if they deserved the gift. A gift stolen from the Skybreakers, from the fertile they'd killed to take that power from. It moved slowly across the gap of the heavens, a small dot against the darkness, lights blinking and reflecting in the cloud, soaring over head.

Gedeon shut his eyes.

The world moved dizzily through the heavens, tilting, turning, moving ever forward on its axis, and he could feel it.

He could feel it: the glide, the shift, the motion of the earth underneath him. He could feel where the horizon ran off and sloped away, hiding from him all the treasures that should always have been his for the taking. He could feel the tides, distant but certain, shifting in and out and calling to him -- but never strong enough to take him, to touch him.

But most of all, he could feel the sun.

He could see the faint glow fading out and vanishing, going farther and farther away, running from him to fight another day. Always another day. One after the next, and he knew the truth. He understood it in ways his father never had, always full of blame and agony and a search for understanding in a sky empty and devoid of love.

His father never understood, but _he_ knew. He knew that it was a fight. A battle. 

One that was fought at every dawn and truced at every dusk.

But the time was coming. The wind whispered to him of a change, of something new. The wind whispered that something was coming, the world pulling back all its pretty little secrets to show something it had hidden from him. Something that only he could see. 

Something that had been promised to him, a long time ago.

All he had to do was wait. It was always just a matter of waiting. 

And, if nothing else, he knew how to do that.

When he opened his eyes, the moon broke the horizon, and began to rise up into the heavens.


	15. Chapter 15

The morning came in bitter and unpleasant and Jensen had no patience for it.

He was pacing back and forth, paws sweeping over the leaf littered ground with determination, kicking bunches of half decayed pine cones and sticks out of the way as he went. His tail was swishing back and forth, creating s-curves in the air, and his mind was busy at work.

He was reviewing every word, every expression, every little _thing_ like it might hide the clue. He went back, replaying the entire exchange in his head, over and over again, eyes darting over the forest floor in front of him as he paced one way, turned, and paced back. There had to be something. There had to be something he was _missing._

He'd only known Jared for three years -- such a small amount of time for ailure. Jensen had grown up in his pride, _knew_ his pride, and there wasn't anyone who didn't know everyone else for their whole lives. Even trades, such as with Misha's home pride, were uncommon at the most, and his captain had been part of them for over two decades now. Three years was nothing to their people. Three years was an _acquaintance._ But Jensen didn't care. He knew Jared. He was sure he knew Jared.

They were mates. They'd lived in the same den together, raised the same cubs together, and he'd slowly wrestled his way through all his fertile's miscellaneous insecurities and inhibitions. He'd stuck it out because Jared was well worth it and Jensen had never doubted that. He'd known it ever since he'd knelt on the ground and looked up at Jared, sweet and hurting, and realized that the creature under his hands was no more and no less than the return of their gods' hands on earth. 

And he'd known it before then, too.

When Jared had risked his life to bring Jensen's son home and yelled at Jensen when the alpha was being too stubborn and too _thick_ to recognize what had come back to him. Jared had his issues, god knew Jared had his issues. His crazy minefield of a human head, for one. But even that had seemed like something good -- like a _challenge_ that never left Jensen bored or complacent.

His mate challenged and bettered him every day, and it was the kind of mateship he'd imagined as a child, growing up on lullabies and night time tales of Neera and Hlune. 

And with all of that, with so much of himself wrapped up in the very _notion_ of Jared, Jensen knew his mate.

And this didn't make any sense.

It hurt. It hurt like _hell,_ like no wound ever could, but it still didn't make sense, and the hurt was secondary to the complete and utter confusion. And so he paced. He paced and he replayed everything, searching every second of his too flawed memory for the key, for the tell, for some sign that Jared was trying to sneak him a message. But he kept coming up empty handed.

 _'Maybe after last month...'_ he heard Aldis say, slow and reticent, no one really wanting to say anything. The other three seemed to recognize that Jensen needed to work off his frustration, even after a full day of hard running, even as tired as he was.

 _'The visitors?'_ Jeff replied, he and Nicki sitting with Aldis over in the small clearing, and Jensen watched them from behind tree trunks as he moved back and forth.

 _'He was raised with humans,'_ Aldis continued. _'He never had any idea what was out there.'_

'No one,' Nicki chimed in, _'knew that there were sabers out there, Aldis.'_

 _'No, of course not. That's not what I'm saying.'_ He sighed, shaking his slender head, the build of his body sleeker than most cougar dominants, skinny and long instead of bulky. _'It's just... We were the first brush with ailure that he'd ever had. It had to be kind of a shock to suddenly see just how much else was out there. Maybe...maybe he wanted to see more of what was out there.'_

 _'Why wouldn't he tell anyone, thought?'_ Jeff asked, and he shook his head. _'I'm just--... He said he wanted to go. I can't bring myself to leave him, but I can't defy a fertile's wishes. If this is what Jared wants...'_

 _'This is_ not _what Jared wants,'_ Jensen snapped immediately, sure of that much. 

_'He didn't look like he had a gun to his head,'_ Nicki observed, but her voice was sad, not harsh. She'd always liked to antagonize Jared, but then again she liked to antagonize _everyone._ It didn't mean she didn't care about them. _'How do we rescue someone who doesn't want to be rescued?'_

 _'I can't just leave him like this. It doesn't--'_ Jeff shook his head, eyes casting off in the direction the sabers had left in. The lightening woods revealed a little more, the corridors of the trees and the length of the foothills before them. But Jared and the other sabers were no where to be seen. They'd left hours ago.

 _'Sabers,'_ Aldis commented, his voice still sounding a little shocked. _'There are others out there. Maybe--...more?'_ He shook his head. _'I can't believe that.'_

 _'Perhaps that was why,'_ Jeff added, looking for reason where there was none. Looking for explanation when there were no others offered. _'I can't imagine what it must be like to be one of the last of your kind. Perhaps he...needed to connect with that. Perhaps he needed the answers they could give him.'_

It was flimsy and nonsensical, and no one really believed it. But none of them wanted to believe that Jared would walk away for them for anything but a good reason. A reason they could understand. And Jared hadn't given them any reason whatsoever -- understandable or not. He'd just gone.

He'd said he was leaving and he'd just turned around and gone.

The sun was slowly climbing up into the sky, casting the wood in thin white light and the bark of the trees darker for it. Their shadows were sent sprawling over the ground, overlapping at their branches and trunks spreading lines out across the forever floor. Hollowed out as it was, in the hour between day and night, it seemed lonely. Empty. 

How was Jensen supposed to return to his children like this? How was he supposed to tell them that he didn't know when their mother was coming home? _If_ their mother was coming home? They were used to heat weak -- to having their mom and the other fertiles gone for a week or so at a time. So far, in their world, nothing unusual had happened yet. They had no idea.

Jensen choked, shaking his head.

His children had no idea their mother was gone. He would come home empty handed to smiling faces and have no answers to give them. They would look at him, so innocent and unknowing, and he would have to shatter their world.

He shook his head, banishing the image.

 _'No,'_ he said plainly, striding over to the other dominants. _'No. It's none of those things.'_

 _'Jensen...'_ Nicki murmured, voice sympathetic. 

_'Even if he'd leave me, even if he'd leave our children...He wouldn't leave with people that_ killed _Brutus. There's something else going on, something that we're not seeing, because Jared wouldn't just forgive that, no matter what happened. Maybe I don't know what it is yet, but--... But--'_

The three of them watched him, and he didn't see disbelief in their faces -- both Nicki and Jeff knew Jared, and all their rationalizations were just that: the two of them trying to rationalize how someone they cared for could do something like this. And Aldis didn't know Jared personally, but they were _pride,_ Jared was regna, and Brutus had been a brother in arms to Aldis. He'd never want to think evil of someone in his pride like this -- that someone might overlook the murder of a beta just to get something they wanted.

And Jared just wasn't that kind of person. He was so sensitive, so caring. He was ridiculous and over the top and often covered his pain with humor, but he was a good person. He was mother to Jensen's cubs and proved himself to be devoted in that. He cried at sad parts in books or stories. He got worried and nervous about anything and everything, concerned over things like Tristan not hitting his first shift right on schedule, or fretting over Nathalie getting a thorn in her paw. He was strong and loyal and fierce when need be, but he was soft hearted, and there was nothing in the world that could make him look at Brutus's body, look at it the way that Jensen had found it, torn open, and wave it off as merely paying the piper.

Jensen had only known Jared for three years, but three years had been enough for them.

 _'But...?'_ Nicki asked, and there wasn't disbelief on their faces, or pity. They didn't think he was just trying to rationalize what happened. 

They were looking for a reason to hope.

 _'But I'm going to go and find out,'_ he finished, certain of very little but certain of that much. Whatever it was that was happening, he was going to at least find out the reason. He walked past his betas and his ex, coming to the edge of the trees when Jeff loped up beside him, the bigger cougar peering down at him and Jensen stopped, shaking his head.

_'I need you all to stay here, all of you.'_

_'Alpha--'_ Aldis started at the same time that Nicki said _'Jensen--.'_

 _'I know you all want to help, but I'm not going to fight. Not this time. Jared asked us not to.'_ He half turned to look back at them. _'If we all march in there together, it's going to look like we're itching for one. I don't want that. I just want to_ talk _to him. It'll be better if I go alone, for that. I want you three to wait here. If I'm not back by daybreak tomorrow, go back to pride ground. Misha will be in charge until new trials can be held.'_

He could hear Nicki suck in a breath of air, shaking her head a little, and he'd seen a lot of expressions on her devilish face, but not this. They'd never been very good together -- all fire and sex and messing things up; everything fun but dangerous -- but that didn't mean that they didn't still care about one another. 

Jeff, on the other hand, looked like if he grit his teeth together anymore they might well shatter, muddy eyes looking brighter, clearer with something that Jensen didn't know if it was anger or tears, but the huge beta didn't say anything. Aldis just looked grim, avoiding Jensen's gaze, and no one would speak against their alpha, not even Nicki, not right now.

 _'Stay here. Stay safe. Protect our family,'_ he ordered, short and simple, and all they needed to know. What they already knew.

He turned back to the forest and loped away, not pushing himself this time. He picked up the scent trail of the sabers easy enough, and with them, Jared. Jared's scent. 

And Jensen would follow that to the end of the earth, if he had to.

\-----

Daybreak found Jared and his keepers settling down under a bunch of brambles.

Well, the others, at least.

 _'I'm not getting in there,'_ he said plainly, looking sideways at Gedeon. The older saber was looking out at the horizon, glowing with that threatening fire. 

_'Yes, you will. Get in,'_ he ordered swiftly, the other three already creeping their way into the shaded thicket. It'd be safe from the sun for the day, that much was certain. The trees all around them already provided plenty of protection, but the thicket itself was so tight and knotted that any light that did get through would be minimal. But the tightness also meant that there was no way that Jared was getting in there without having the brambles cut up his back, and as it was, the bigger dominants already wore a few errant scratches. Jared knew he was being prissy -- they were barely more than paper cuts -- but damnit, after the night he'd had(god, the last three _days_ he'd had) he deserved to be prissy.

He wasn't getting into a dank, muddy, bramble filled wallow in the earth. It just wasn't happening.

 _'Look. I came with you willingly, didn't I? And you got me. I'm sick. I can't go back home, and if I split up from you, I'm just going to risk the pride.'_ There was no way they wouldn't come looking for him eventually, and he had no idea how the disease worked. Maybe his body would still be dangerous, and god, Brutus-- He shook his head. There was nothing he could do about that right now. All he could do was limit their exposure.

And the only way to do that was stay with the other infected. They were unavoidably dangerous but Jared could at least keep their circle of exposure as small and tight as possible.

 _'I told my mate that I was leaving and I went with you when I could have gotten rescued. So you can crawl into your_ mud hole, _but I'm staying out here, thank you very much. And you'll see me again at sundown.'_

Gedeon looked displeased, nose wrinkling, angry, and for a second Jared thought he was just going to outright deny him, but the other saber was still glancing at the horizon, where the sun was just beginning to peak over. Jared rolled his eyes.

 _'You've_ got _me. Okay? Checkmate. I'm cornered. You might as well have me on a leash,'_ he stated plainly and it was the truth. There wasn't any point to him being watched day and night anymore.

Gedeon gave him one more irritated up and down look, but the sunlight was spreading over the grass and he finally snarled and moved over to the thicket.

 _'Fine. You had best be here when we wake up,'_ he said, threat simple and he didn't bother with an 'or else', or anything explicit. Jared didn't need that anyways. It wasn't like he and Gedeon were friends going back ages or anything, but three days was more than long enough to know the kind of evil Gedeon would rain down on anyone who crossed him.

Jared sighed and settled himself on the still damp grass, watching Gedeon slink down into the hollow in the earth, his dark coat vanishing and tail disappearing with him a second later. The sun was rising, and the forest lightening, and Jared didn't know just how much he'd missed it until he felt the sunlight wash across his face and he breathed in deep, as if he could smell its honeyed scent, golden and sweet. 

His heat was building in him, making his skin itchy and uncomfortable, and it was hard to settle down, hard to ignore the clench in the depths of his gut, but he was tired, and tomorrow had become a strange, unknown thing, every day bringing something new unexpected, but he knew this much: it would be exhausting, and he would need all of his strength.

So he put his head down and tried to put his heat, Gedeon's dangerous eyes, and the pained confusion flashing across Jensen's face, out of his mind.

\-----

Jared ending up waking when the sun was low but still in the sky, sinking slow and orange and leaving the shadows long and stretched. The thicket behind him was a dark, unmoving mass of brambles and vines, and Jared couldn't see the other sabers through it, no matter which way he moved his head, but he knew from the last few days that they wouldn't come out until the sun was fully down.

Which mean that at least this time was his own.

He got to his feet, stretching out and feeling a brisk autumn wind curling by him, stirring his fur. He shivered once and shook himself, walking out of the wooded area to look out over the expanse of the Great Appalachian valley from the top of the slope. It heartened him a little to know that, despite their pace and the time passed, he still wasn't so far away from home that he couldn't recognize it. The valley stretched for miles and miles -- all the way up into New England. 

He frowned when he realized he didn't even know if he was in the same state anymore.

Off to his left he heard a twig snap and the last time he'd ignored a suspicious noise a friend of his had ended up dead. His head snapped to the side, watching the forest closely. The hilltop he stood on ended in a ravine between it and the next slope, a place where the earth had shifted and split the hill in twain, leaving a gap between the two sides. The ravine yawned between Jared and the noise, serving as a kind of protection, but the gap wasn't huge, not more than a few yards.

Jared didn't relax when he saw the tawny coat of his mate slink out into the setting autumn sunlight, cast in bright orange and yellow.

His shoulders slumped.

 _'Jensen,'_ he said, and pushed himself to his paws, walking over to the edge of the ravine. The thicket behind him was still dead silent, and they had a few minutes. Jared wasn't sure if that was better than nothing or not.

 _'Jared,'_ Jensen replied, stopping at the edge on the other side, looking across at him. _'God...Just tell me. Are you alright?'_

Jared didn't know how to answer that. He was about as alright as a kidnap victim could be, about as alright as someone could be with the threat of forced impregnation hanging over their head... But he was sick. He was sick, and to be honest, he could only hope that the disease would take him before Gedeon could.

His ears flicked.

 _'I'm...surviving,'_ he answered as honestly as he could. That much was true.

 _'Jared...'_ Jensen started, and Jared knew where this was going. The only place it _could_ go. He tried to brush it off. Tried to stop this train wreck before it happened. He didn't want to talk. He didn't want to feel better because he _couldn't_ feel better. He'd lost his one hope: that his mate would be able to come and save him.

_'Jensen--'_

_'Why?_ Why, _Jared? Just tell me_ why.'

 _'You always said no questions asked. That you would just let me go,'_ Jared responded, but even in his own head it sounded dull and flat.

 _'Three years ago, Jared! Three years!'_ Jensen shook his head, voice full of disbelief and pain, and it pained Jared to hear. _'You can't stand there and tell me that things haven't_ changed. _Any time, any time I would have let you go, let you take our cubs... When you were pregnant, even after you'd given birth, I was ready to let you go if you needed it. And...and I still have no right to chain you, but I have earned a reason. That much...that much I have earned.'_

He sounded almost out of breath, desperate and pleading, and it broke Jared to hear his mate, so strong and confident -- his _alpha_ \-- reduced like this. Reduced in a way he never should be, and Jared had done that. Had weakened him like this.

 _'...it's the sickness,'_ he answered, feeling the sun sink and sink lower, veering down to the horizon, and soon Jared would have to go. _'The Yellowstone Virus. The one that wiped out the pride. These cats, they're the last of the dominants that survived, and they're--... Just like you said, Jensen. The dominants survive, and they turn_ wrong. _It's too late for me.'_ He could see Jensen's expression changing, eyes widening, and if he wasn't covered in fur, Jared was certain he'd see his mate grow pale. _'I've been exposed, but you haven't.'_

_'Jared...'_

_'You have to go home. Before you get infected.'_

_'I won't leave you!'_

_'You will. You will turn around, and you will go home.'_

_'What about you?'_

_'I'm--... I don't know. Gedeon doesn't seem to think I'll die. I'm not sure I believe him.'_ Jared looked to the side. The other saber seemed convinced, but none of them were that stable. Not enough for Jared to have faith in, and he wasn't ready yet to hope. He lifted his head again. _'But it doesn't matter. I've been exposed, and I won't come home. I won't endanger the pride like that.'_

'No,' Jensen replied with complete conviction. _'We swore to protect you. We_ swore. _We'd rather die than live knowing that we lost the last of a great line. That we were given such a gift and tossed it aside without protest. The others would gladly risk it, to save you--'_

 _'And what about our children, Jensen?!'_ Jared snapped, baring his teeth. _'What say do they have? Did they swear to give their lives as well? Because I don't remember that!'_ He growled, the sound heavy and real and grounding, and Jared wouldn't move from where he'd planted his paws. _'You will go_ home. _You will go home and you will-- you will look after our children.'_

 _'Let me at least come with you,'_ Jensen pleaded, looking for any meager thing, and it sickened Jared, set up a pit in his stomach to see so proud an alpha beg. _'I will send the others home, but I_ will not leave you.'

 _'I'm asking you to,'_ Jared replied without pause, soft and sad but completely lacking in doubt. _'I'm asking you to go home. To be with our children. Our family. I don't want to bring this sickness into the pride. I don't want to be the reason our children die. I don't want to be the reason you die. And I don't want them to be orphans. Jensen...Jensen. I need you to leave now.'_

He could see the tip of the sun, its light so frail and orange, clinging to the edge of the earth, a single column of light reaching up into the sky -- its dying grasp on the heavens.

_'You need to go back to the pride, Jensen.'_

_'Jared...'_

_'You have bigger responsibilities than me.'_

_'Bullshit.'_

_'You are_ alpha.' It was a phrase that he'd heard so many ailure use before, with that unending faith, their voices carrying some hidden meaning that Jared never quite got. 

He got it now.

Jensen was more than human, more than ailure. Something bigger and almost preternatural. Jensen was the spirit that bound them all together as a family, and as surely as Jensen's love for Jared was pulling him away, their family would begin to fall apart. Jared couldn't let that happen.

_'Go home, Jensen. Please. I'm asking you.'_

_'I swear, Jared... I swear to the_ gods. _I will_ save _you.'_ The alpha's voice was more tinged with desperation now, and Jared would never be able to see Jensen as that divine spirit, not wholly. He knew Jensen too well as a man. He would never call his mate 'hrao. He would never bow his head to him.

The green flash sparked at the edge of the world and the sun disappeared, the night reaching out and grabbing at the land, bringing it back into darkness. Back into despair.

 _'...you can't,'_ Jared replied, knowing that much, now. Certain. There was no chain around his neck, no rope around his wrists, but there might as well have been. He wasn't strong enough to kill all four of his captors, but he also couldn't run from them. To leave would mean to spread the sickness that had wiped his people out -- that would wipe out the rest of the Blue Ridge Pride and Jared's own children, and maybe more. Maybe it would spread up the eastern seaboard, hopping from pride to pride before man's fire could burn it out as they had once before. Maybe it would travel so fast, so swift, and maybe all those amazing cats he'd met, all those leaders and speakers and shamans, maybe every ancient piece of their people would die out, suffering in pain and madness, the last of their dignity robbed because Jared couldn't find the strength to shoulder it alone.

Because he had run from his fear, like he always did.

But he'd been home for three years. He'd found a place in the world where for once he belonged, and he'd fight for it in a way he'd never been willing to fight before. He'd never understood before, what it meant to fight. What it meant to stand up and refuse to sit back down. He'd never found anything worth curling his fist for and squaring his feet and saying _here and no further._

Until he'd found a place, the only place, that he couldn't give up.

And so he turned around, and walked back into the darkness, as slow and sure as a man coming to his fate, and Jared wasn't afraid.

This wasn't three years ago, and he wasn't that person anymore.


	16. Chapter 16

Jared had his resolve but he couldn't say that it made anything any easier over the next couple of days.

He knew what he was doing was right, was the only choice that he had, but that didn't make it enjoyable. Didn't make any of it okay. The other sabers crawled out of their wallow the evening he said goodbye to Jensen and they all continued on, and Jared was only grateful that they clearly had somewhere to be. It seemed that, so long as that was true, Gedeon wasn't trying anything.

He didn't cry about it until he had a chance at privacy, the next day. He'd never let any of the bastards see, but when he had a chance, and no one was looking, he let the tears dampen his fur.

He missed Jensen.

He had his self-respect and he refused to lower his head. He would bring the honor to his pride that Jensen had always spoken of, and he clung to that, but it didn't change the fact that he was miserable. His heat _hurt,_ and there was no where to seclude himself. He missed the cool water of the Cove, rolling in it when his body felt like it was on fire, feeling the gentle tongues of his fellow fertiles grooming his face, calming each other through their rough patches. There was no cool water here, and no safety from the hungry eyes of dominants. Dominants that Jared _knew_ could smell him, smell every little pheromone his traitorous body was putting out -- and it had been awhile since he'd thought of himself like that.

After the revelation that he couldn't leave them, Gedeon was much less concerned with keeping Jared where he could see him during the day. In fact, Jared was pretty much left to his own devices. So long as he was there when the evening came, there were no problems and Jared was allowed to roam where he chose. It made daytime a welcome relief -- time to be alone, to be undisturbed and unprovoked by the other sabers and their capricious cruelty. At night, when they were watching him, he wouldn't look at them, wouldn't flinch, and he held his chin up, a captured king, refusing to bow before the mercenary. But during the day he was a twenty two year old runaway, alone and scared and missing his mate, his children.

He just wanted to be wrapped up in bed with Jensen. He wished he'd said yes to that other litter. It didn't matter that it was for the wrong reasons, or that his heat hadn't started until just before he was kidnapped. He wished he was seated with Jensen's children, so that if one of these dominants, these _murderers,_ finally forced him down and took him, their children would find no hold inside of him.

He thought he should feel bad about it, but he didn't: he would have nothing to do with any children born from such a union. He would refuse to nurse any litter he conceived by anyone other than Jensen -- he would leave them to starve, shivering and alone, abandoned. He knew he would hate them unabashedly.

It spoke volumes, bit at the insides, that his "hope" these days, was that the disease would climb and take him before Gedeon could try anything. The older saber seemed convinced that Jared would "survive" just like he and his siblings had, and it didn't seem to matter to him that the facts were against him. They'd had several conversations through night, Jared pointing out that _all_ fertile died from the Yellowstone Virus, only to find out that Gedeon didn't even know what a virus _was._

To him, the disease was "human magic," a test sent by the gods. Jared would be spared because of his place in destiny.

Jared had known beforehand that he was dealing with a fanatic. It just hadn't sunk in until just then.

Gedeon didn't know germ theory, and he brushed away any attempts that Jared made to explain to -- to make the damned dominant understand that this wasn't _magic._ There weren't _magical exceptions_. Jared was going to _die_ like all the saber fertiles before him and he could only hope that it would be quick enough that he never suffered the madness, and quick enough that he'd never have to bear any cubs unwillingly. The disease was in the blood, probably already running in the veins, doing its dirty business, and there were no gods guiding the outcome, no magic quest or special circumstances.

Gedeon was starring in his own personal fairy tale in his head, but Jared was living in the real world, and the schism of that, the divide between them, seemed terrifying, because Gedeon had all of the power and none of the sense. And Jared had no choice but to accept it, go along with it, alternating between wanting the disease to hurry it up and wanting the disease to vanish and be gone. 

And in the meantime, he just kept walking.

\-----

Two days after seeing Jensen for the final time, Jared watched the last of the fading sun, missing it already as the sky tipped to the darkness. He'd never much noticed the change from day to night and back again -- it was just a natural rhythm of the world that passed under his perception as much as his heartbeat did. To the ailure the sun was sacred and the sky full of portents and omens, history and gods and spirits. To them the sky was more than just the dome of the world, the thin barrier between them and space, them and the endless, teaming cosmos.

Jared had accepted that, _indulged_ it, even, going along with beliefs that would never quite be his, too far outside the realm of his indoctrination. But he'd taken to sunning with the others, slowly, taken to listening to the bedtime stories that Jensen told their cubs, and watched with affection when his fellow fertile looked upwards and shut their eyes, basking in the light of the incoming dawn.

But to Jared, it had just been the sky.

Now he looked at it with longing. Counted down the hours to sunrise every night and watched them slip away all too swiftly during the day. Now he felt a flash of mourning flare up inside of him when the sun vanished, when the orange bled out from the sky like it'd been cut, and everything went dark and still and dead.

He'd never feared the night. Of all the things in his life he'd feared, the bullies and the jokes, his heat and subsequent solitude, being caught out as so very different from everyone else in his life and incapable of standing up for himself, he'd never feared the dark.

But as the stars came out, one at a time, winking little cold dots, empty of compassion, Jared felt dread like a stone in his stomach.

 _'Go on then,'_ Gedeon said, slinking up behind Jared, body curving around him. Jared went stiff, joints locking to keep himself steady. He felt his chin jerk up a little, instinctively, looking nowhere else but the blurry horizon line, the choppy line of the trees and the last of the day vanishing below them.

 _'Do it,'_ Gedeon encouraged, too much humor in his voice. _'Pray. Pray, little fertile. Pray to bring up the sun.'_

Jared grit his teeth, jaw clenching at the mockery, but he didn't look at Gedeon.

 _'That is what your kind do, isn't it? The children of Yrsa? The greatest yn'duru -- the shaman that raised the dead. The shaman that tamed the sky. Tell me, do you have her blood in you? Do you feel her power, or has it faded for you, washed away by time and sin?'_ Gedeon shifted around, curving behind Jared again to come to his other side. _'Prove it to me. Prove to me your_ great, fabled _power. Show me what the meek fertile can do. I heard so many stories, heard so many tales of the powerful yn'duru of our past, I just want to see it in action. Prove to me that I am wrong. Bring up the sun.'_

Jared wanted to turn, to spit, to snap, but he wouldn't give Gedeon the satisfaction. The other cat knew as well as him that there was no magic, nothing special that Jared could do or say to change the rotation of the Earth, change the direction of the sun through the sky. There was no magic, no mystic word or secret signal.

There was Jared and Gedeon snorted a laugh, walking away.

Jared snarled and whirled around, watching the larger cat stalking back to the group and Jared didn't have much choice but to follow, though his brow was set in displeasure. His mate's shifting necklace swung between his legs and he needed that. He didn't have a whole lot of hope of seeing Jensen again, but at least with the necklace he had a connection to him: a physical reminder that there were people out there who cared for him.

That even when he was alone, he wasn't alone.

 _'Someone looks heat-fogged today,'_ Varushka commented, and Jared hadn't heard the term before but he suddenly _massively_ regretted ever asking his female friends in high school if it was 'that time of the month' whenever they got mad about something. It suddenly occurred to him, in that moment, that it was an asshole thing to do, and he snapped at Varushka, who just laughed.

He whirled when he felt something brush his flank, only to find Dmitri there, having been sniffing at Jared's tail and the fertile felt himself flush under his fur, feeling that old familiar shame bubble up, something he thought he'd been able to leave behind. But he wasn't used to his heat being used against him like this. He wasn't used to being treated like he was _less_ because he capable of conceiving.

He lashed out at Dmitri quickly, the dominant bounding backwards with an infuriating grin.

 _'So feisty, Geds,'_ Dmitri commented, the group still rousing from their sleep and not yet moving out. Pyotr was off to the side, licking his wounds, which were now a fierce angry red and dotted with yellow, weeping pus into his matted fur. Dmitri continued. _'Are you sure you'll be able to get on his back?'_

 _'I'll find a way,'_ Gedeon replied, and their tones were light. Jovial. It would have been less threatening if they'd been trying to _be_ threatening. As it was, it chilled and angered Jared how casually they spoke about it, like it wasn't one of the dirtiest, cruelest things they could do to another living being.

 _'You're sick,'_ Jared hissed. _'All of you.'_

 _'You just have to make it clear that you're in charge,'_ Gedeon said, and he wasn't talking to Jared -- just talked right over Jared like his words weren't important, like Jared just a piece of inconvenient furniture in the room, or a kid that needed to shut up while the adults were speaking. 

He was about to scathingly disabuse them of that notion when Gedeon moved closer, close enough that Jared moved to back up without even thinking about it, instinctively wanting to have his space cleared of the dangerous saber.

 _'Like this,'_ Gedeon said, instructively, as if giving a lesson to children, and his head snapped out, jaws seizing the back of Jared's neck, still sore from the bite that he'd received a few days earlier, and Jared collapsed with a short cry of pain. Whatever pain he felt, though, was quickly blocked out, eclipsed by the sensation of weight against his back and Jared's heart rate tripled in an instant, adrenaline flooding his system and he twisted frantically out of Gedeon's grasp and dashed halfway across their little encampment in the next second, skidding to a stop with his claws tight and deep in the soil.

His movements were accompanied by laughter, roaring and raucous, like drunken frat kids playing a stupid prank, and Jared was panting, panic still surging in him. His eyes darted from one to the other of the saber's, trying to evaluate if any would come for him again, but it seemed to be little more than _teasing,_ done with the ambition of watching him upset and riled. It made him feel sick, but more than that, set up a lump in his throat, like he was hurt, like he could expect anything different from monsters.

It _hurt_ how cruel they were, how completely devoid of love or affection his world was at the moment, surrounded, closed in by people that saw him as meat and little else, and it made him want to cry again, made him want to curl up and choke his way through the thought that he would never see his family again. Because he was just beginning to accept that these were likely the last faces in the world he was ever going to see.

But he'd walk over hot coals before he let them see him shed a tear.

So instead he bared his teeth, face curling into a violent grimace as he stared across at Gedeon.

 _'I am_ regna,' he snarled, loud and clear. _'I'm no common whore that will lift his tail for any mangy dominant that happens to scent me. Only an_ alpha _is strong enough to hold me down -- only an alpha is worthy of mounting my back, and_ you _are_ no alpha.'

The words were as clear and sharp as rain and he hoped they sliced when they landed. The laughter stopped almost immediately, the dominants looking at him once, then turning their eyes to Gedeon, whose expression was nameless and unreadable then. The older saber's head dipped down lower, milky, veined eyes seeming as vague and unfocused as always but containing something much more, but Jared refused to be cowed, stood his ground in the face of the stare.

Or, at least he did, until Gedeon's incredible mass was moving at him at a terrifying speed, rushing full tilt into Jared's space and Jared didn't have any choice but to shuffle swiftly back, stumbling over his own paws until his back met a tree and he instintictively huddled down. It was no conscious effort on his part, merely the automatic response of an animal under threat. He wanted to stand up and fight, but Gedeon was leaning over him, so massive and huge, nearly twice Jared's size and so intensely threatening, and Jared, limited by his fertile physique, had no recourse.

He stared up into those eyes cloudy with hate and felt his momentary bravery flee him.

Gedeon's form completely eclipsed him and Jared felt the other cat's shadow on his fur like it was something real and with weight -- like a scar or tattoo or an unwanted caress.

 _'I will_ hobble _you,'_ Gedeon said, voice a whisper, the sound of a coffin sliding shut. _'If we didn't have so far to go I'd do it now and let you drag yourself. So on our journey you'd best take the time to accept your_ place _in this pride, or else when we reach our home I will mangle those legs of yours. I will see you dragging yourself over the ground like a worm before you defy me again, and_ that _is promise from_ your alpha.'

The dominant stayed there, looming and dangerous, chest heaving, not with exertion but with anger and Jared didn't doubt a word. Gedeon didn't make empty threats -- he rarely even made threats. He just _did._ Gedeon had his plans and he wasn't going to let anyone, let Jared, do anything to disrupt them. And Gedeon didn't need him to be able to walk.

For a second, heart fluttering in his chest, Jared through Gedeon was just going to do it _now,_ jaws snapped out to crush the tendons in his hindlegs, but after too long a moment the dominant stepped away, and it seemed like staying on the move was definitely his priority. 

_'Come,'_ he commanded, walking into the woods. _'We still have a long way to go.'_

 _'You should know better,'_ Dmitri commented to Jared as he walked past, snide and too knowing, and Jared felt a flicker of anger in him, that justified, righteous rage, that desire to _stand up_ against this kind of violence, this kind of cruelty, but that spark was snuffed out quick enough with the fear of the threat, snuffed out by the cold rushing through his veins.

 _'Shut up, Dmitri,'_ was all he managed, watching the other sabers move past him, Varushka grinning feral and sadistic, and Pyotr limping along and still laughing to himself -- at what had happened or at something in his own head was anyone's guess. The sick, scraggly pride meandered off into the forest, continuing their straight short north.

Jared paused only long enough to look over his shoulder, the last ruddy red turning to black and fading into the dark line of the trees. 

He was alone in this.

He had his necklace and his memories but it didn't make him any less alone -- a man surrounded by monsters and no way to fight them. The more he got to know them the more he felt like he could yell at them, insult them, the more he felt like he had some kind of leeway or, god help him, a connection. But that was an illusion, as much as a mirage on the highway. 

Gedeon had all the power here and he wasn't about to let Jared forget it.


	17. Chapter 17

The journey to find Jared had seemed to stretch on forever. 

Every minute seemed like an hour, a thousand possibilities running through Jensen's head that he didn't want there, that he didn't want to imagine. He and the other three dominants had run like their lives depended on it, because the life of their regna, their _Skybreaker_ depended on it, and that was something even greater. They'd run at almost their top speed, not slowing, barely stopping to gulp water from dirty puddles, only to push on, running through the night and then the day and the night again, until the scents in front of their noses had gone from stale to fresh. Until they'd come into a clearing in the woods and seen the last thing they'd expected: sabers.

And now Jensen knew, sabers that carried the Yellowstone Virus with them.

The journey had seemed endless, with Jensen's heart hammering in his chest and uncertainty dogging his steps -- but the trip home was far longer.

They moved at a more sedate pace, no great pressure to drive them on, save Jensen's need to be back with the pride that he was responsible for. His need to not lose anyone else.

And just the thought, the memory of Jared on the other side of the precipice from him, the memory of Brutus's body still and limp in his arms, made his heart pinch and his feet pick up their pace.

But mostly it felt so much longer because there was nothing driving him on.

He was returning home a failure, and just the thought made him want to turn from it, to not show his face. To not come home and make a mockery of his cousin's sacrifice. To not come home empty handed to hopeful faces that would quickly fall to despair. He didn't want to see that.

Thankfully, the others left him alone. Nicki looked like she wanted to say something, when they stopped to rest, but Jensen turned his head away. Exhausted as he was, it was still hard to sleep, and when he did he dreamed of Jared's body as torn as Brutus, and he woke up sick with an inhalation of breath. In the night, surrounded by silence and shadows, Jensen looked out into the darkness and wanted to get up and just walk away. To leave all his responsibilities behind him and just follow Jared, until sickness or time took him. Even if he couldn't see his mate again, even if he'd never hear him again, just to walk in his footsteps...

But his cubs were waiting for him at home and Jared had begged him to be there for them. His cubs and his pride and he loved all of them so much, but both seemed like such cold comforts in the face of this. He loved his children, but they couldn't make up for the loss of a mate. A mate like _this._ A mate like Jared.

Jensen had waited thirty five years to find a mate, to find someone who complemented him, and he had given up on it eventually. He'd certainly never thought it'd be a saber sixteen years his junior. He'd given up, and it was only then that Jared had shown up on his proverbial doorstep, young and lost and beautiful. And incapable of ever losing hope.

Jensen wished it was a property he possessed, but hope was meaningless in a situation like this, where it only served to be crushed.

They arrived back at pride ground and the betas came to report, their eyes searching as they ran up -- searching for Jared and finding nothing but the lackluster faces of the supposed rescue party. There was no explanation needed.

Jensen took minimal comfort in the fact that, other than Jared and Brutus, there had been no losses. However it was that the sabers had gotten onto the hunting ground, they hadn't killed the patrol to do so. The fertiles were still all in the mainhouse, safe and protected by a dozen beta at all hours of the day, and the patrols had been restricted to pride ground alone, leaving the hunting grounds bare and vulnerable, but keeping their people safe.

Jensen knew that the news should have made him happy, and he knew he felt some relief, in a distant, detached sort of way. But he was too tired, too heartsick, to truly feel it. 

He ordered the beta to keep up their current patterns, and sent Lucius to go and find Cole -- there wasn't much evidence on the Yellowstone Virus, everything having happened so fast back then and the technology not being as advanced. The Hyl'maithen pride had been dead before anyone could observe the properties of the sickness, but it hadn't been thought to be airborne after the initial explosion. Cole hadn't been bitten and he hadn't bitten or scratched one of the infected, but it didn't hurt to be careful and keep him away from the other fertile.

Exhausted and stripped as he was he ordered his three companions to come down with him to the river, stopping to shift and grabbing some iodine and one of the few bars of soap they had and went down to the water. It wouldn't be great for the river, but it wasn't as if they made a habit of using such things, and Jensen couldn't bring himself to care at that moment. All four of them shifted into their human forms and scrubbed themselves down in the freezing water, goosebumps breaking out on their skin as they did so.

He stayed there and scrubbed longer than was strictly necessary, not at all wanting to go and seek his cubs out, not wanting to explain to them what had happened. Jensen wasn't ready to give up yet, but he also couldn't think of anything else he could do. If he went to fight the saber's, he'd get infected, and while he'd happily die to free his mate, he wouldn't be able to.

Jared was infected now. In all likelihood he'd be dead before the week was out.

The thought, sudden and unbidden in his mind, came up so quickly, so out of no where, that he choked on a breath, sick with it. It couldn't be true. 

He leaned over in the water, pressing one hand to his thigh and the other covering his face.

"Alpha," Jeff's gravely voice came from behind him, a broad, rough hand coming to lay across the skin of his back. Jensen didn't shrug him off, but he didn't turn around either.

"Go--" he started, and had to stop to collect himself, collect his breath. "Go join the others, Jeff. I just--" He shook his head. "Not right now."

He couldn't deal with this with other people. He couldn't just let it out with his betas watching him, with his pride needing him to be strong.

The worst part was that for the last three years he'd had someone he could bare himself to. Someone he was equal to. Someone who could yell at him and call him an idiot, someone who didn't call him _'hrao_ or alpha -- someone who needed him, but not like the pride needed him. A mate. He'd had a mate.

And now he didn't.

He heard the shuffling of stones as the other dominants walked up the bank, water sloshing as they stepped out. He waited, listening, his back still turned to them, until all was silent, and it was just him and the river.

The river had carried away his grief, once. Had carried away all his hopes and love and then brought it back to him in a way he'd never expected.

The river could shoulder his grief once more.

He stumbled down to sit awkwardly as he tried to drag in lungfuls of air, feeling like it was choking him, like he could never quite get enough breath as his chest contracted, spasmed, a twitch of muscles wound too tight. It felt like too much. It felt overwhelming. It was an impossible situation and he felt caged by that, like all the open air of the forest wasn't enough, like he was boxed in.

There was nothing he could do. There was nothing he could do to _fix_ this when every alpha instinct in him was screaming to defend his pride, his mate, his Dawnbringer. It was his job, his responsibility, and he had failed so monumentally that the last saber fertile in the world was now as good as dead, and a life without his mate yawned impossibly wide in front of him. Years, decades, until some young idealistic upstart challenged him and mercifully put him to his grave.

Or maybe it wouldn't be that long.

Only a few weeks ago their land had been crawling with ailure from across the world, seeking even just a moment in Jared's presence, and they hadn't been wrong: their people had despaired for almost half a century now, lived with the absolute belief that their sacred people, their connection to the gods, had been wiped from the earth. It had been hard, grueling, to accept that reality, to live with it, but their people had no choice but to do so. All around the world their people had grieved and begun to move on, until Jensen gave them reason to hope.

And it would be harder, _crueller,_ now, to have to go through that again, after such a brief and glorious reprieve.

And Jensen could only hope that perhaps some alpha, full of fire and righteous rage, would come to punish him for this: for selfishly keeping, and then losing, the gift given to him by the gods.

He let out a weak cry, sobbing at the pain in his chest at the thought -- at how Jared had been delivered to him. That such a sacred creature had been given to him, placed in his hands, put under his care, his protection, and he had failed. That for what felt like only a second he'd cradled the most precious light in all the world, only to have to slip through his fingers and scattered by the wind. He'd so wanted to keep that light for himself, for it to belong to him that he'd held on and refused to let go when others offered the safety of their greater prides. He hadn't wanted anyone else to have Jared but him, and this was the result.

He'd failed. He'd failed his mate, his pride, his people and his gods.

He'd lost Jared, and he didn't know how to go back to the life he'd had before -- not knowing what it was like to live with the other half he'd given up looking for.

\-----

Jensen waited until the morning to go to his cousin.

He'd eventually found where his cubs were being kept, tucked into one of the cabins with Katie and Genevieve, who'd had a litter from the same littergroup as Tristan. They'd all been sleepy and curled up, waking only slightly when he came over to them, putting his arms around them and leaning down to breath in the familiar scent of his family at rest.

Everyone but Jared. 

The thought, the _lack_ of scent, made him flinch, but Tristan curled into his armpit, and Jensen swallowed it back. 

In the morning, he was up before they woke, moving around pride ground in the grey light. With the entire pride pooled there, the area was more active than usual, cats in both their true and their human forms moving around, their eyes flitting over to the alpha when he passed. He didn't bother talking with anyone. He was sure that by now they all knew he'd come back empty handed. That he'd failed to protect what they'd been given, what they all treasured.

He went out to the store shed, where the truck was kept, and grabbed a gas can for the generators and a box of matches. By the time he made it out to the Pale Gulch the sun was halfway up in the sky, the day gusty and breezy, leaves scattering as he walked up the slope, emerging from the wood to see the dry, cracked surface of the mountain, and the split in the earth where his people had laid their dead to rest for two hundred years.

There was a wooden altar assembled by the edge, the unmoving body of an ailure laid out in front of the sun, left to expose. On either side of it was a beta, keeping animals from getting to the body. Brutus was untouched, save for the wounds that had killed him -- left out in the open so that Saul'hrao would be forced to look at him every day. So that no one in the heavens would mistake him for anything other than a warrior, honored and loved by his people.

Jensen's hand wrapped tighter around the handle of the gas can.

 _'Alpha,'_ one of the beta, Emma, greeted. Jensen nodded to them.

"...it's worse than we thought," he said, not sure how to open this, how to even begin to explain. The betas looked at each other and then at their alpha, and Jensen sighed, setting the gas can down. 

He explained the situation as briefly as he could, trying to brush over everything that Jared had said to him -- the things that were _his_ that he didn't want to share with anyone else. Even as he spoke all he could see was his mate standing apart from him, too distant on the other side of the ravine and with a sad acceptance in his eyes. All he could see was Jared turning and walking away, and Jensen watching until he was gone from sight, and even then not prepared to move. Like Jared would come back. Change his mind and come back and they could languish together, as mates were supposed to.

He informed the two guards about the possibility of disease -- that, unlikely as it was, they'd still been exposed by guarding the body. Jensen hated the idea of dousing Brutus, but it was the best way to keep his pride safe.

 _'We'll stay,'_ Liza claimed, when Jensen finished speaking. She glanced at the other beta before turning back to her alpha. _'If we've already been exposed, then there's no point in us coming back to pride ground. I can't speak for Em, but...I would like to remain here. With Brutus.'_

Emma nodded shortly and Jensen swallowed thickly, taking a deep breath before he reached down to undo the gas cap. 

The fire burned bright and orange, brilliant in front of the grey sky and Jensen stood back to watch, watch as the flame slowly consumed flesh, ate away at it and flared brighter. His people had always embraced death as a way of life -- they lived by killing their prey, and, equally, they too, died, by illness or injury, they'd pass on, old age a concept that few prides knew. The idea of death had always been accepted by them, seen as part of life and treated so passively.

Jensen hated it.

He hated the Gulch and every memory he had of it. He hated putting his mother to rest here. He hated that his first children lay within the white pile of bone, mixed in and indistinguishable. He hated that he was watching the last of his cousin burn away to ash, but most of all he hated the complete and bare acceptance they gave to this -- that it was right or honorable to die early. That it was part of nature and therefore _good_ that they ended at all.

The humans fought death, found medicine and science and discovery and they fought it like a pitched battle, unwilling to ever give in easily. Unwilling to ever go under easily.

The ailure, for all their strength, looked at death like it had already won.

And Jensen hated that -- that a people so devoted to fighting, to winning, to never giving up, viewed their own demise, or the demise of those they loved as acceptable. But Jensen could not.

It was why he'd formed his alliance with Bryson. Why he'd sought the humans and their knowledge out.

He hadn't wanted to lose anyone else before he absolutely had to, and for all the safety and amenities he'd brought his pride, it seemed like every connection he made was severed too soon. For once he wanted to stop giving. He wanted to stop looking after his pride first and his own needs second.

He wanted to run. To leave his pride, his family, his children, and go back to his mate. 

If Jared was to die from the virus that he'd miraculously escaped as a cub, Jensen wanted to be beside him when he did, no matter what it meant giving up, and for once he could understand the impulse to just accept.

He watched the flesh sear from Brutus's ash blackened bones, his bravery little more than smoke curling up in the early morning air, and Jensen remembered Jared at his back when he'd lowered his first litter to their final resting place.

Jared wasn't here now. Wouldn't be waiting for him back in their den.

Jensen had always known he'd clawed himself back by the skin of his teeth, last time. This time, there was no beloved fertile to fight for. This time, he didn't know if he wanted to come back at all.

\-----

The rest of the day passed by unreal, seeming to drag out forever while still being so distant that he barely remembered what happened. He spoke with Misha, a look of unbearable sympathy on the captain's face. They discussed the pride and the disease and Misha sometimes tried to get in a more personal note, tried to bring up Jared, but Jensen headed him off every time, keeping the conversation firmly in business and nothing else.

He got his reports on what had happened while he was gone, the head counts for everyone to reassure him that no one other than Brutus and Jared had been lost, but it didn't seem as soothing as it should. It didn't seem like it was worth much, and Jensen couldn't even find the energy to chastise himself. Every life that hadn't been lost had a family, had loved ones -- every life that remained was important, precious, but Jensen didn't know why _he_ was always the one who had to let people go. Why he could protect everyone else but he couldn't protect the ones that were close to him, the ones he needed.

Cosette came to talk to him briefly, putting a hand on his face, but he didn't remember their conversation, only the soft sound of her voice trying to be understanding to something that she could never understand.

Jensen went to the cabin his cubs were staying in that night bitter and warped, aggravated at the world and full of self-pity.

He knew that it was Jared out there, infected and in danger, threatened by sabers that obviously planned to do even worse, but it was his own pain that Jensen couldn't look past. It was the unfairness of the world, taking and taking and never giving back, it seemed, that made Jensen want to slam his fist into a wall.

What the hell was he, if not an alpha? What good was his power if it couldn't save the last fertile Dawnbringer in all the world? What was the point of all this, of mating and children and taking all those reports, organizing and planning and running his pride, if they were all just going to die?

It seemed like a wasted, futile effort. A man yelling against an incoming storm to ward it away. Yelling at the wind to stop blowing.

When he got to the door, warm light glowing from inside and the faint noises of family within, Jensen winced, his hand halfway to the doorknob.

Family.

Jared's family.

They had no idea. The last they'd heard was Jared calling them to go radio silent while he dealt with the big news outbreak. The last they knew was that foreign ailure had been traveling in to see him, and that things were tense but fine.

Jensen could just imagine Jared's mother, a flighty, nervous sort of person on the best of days, sitting up in her Wyoming house, worrying about her son. He could imagine Jared's father, calmer by far, trying to soothe her. Telling her that she was being silly. That of course everything would be alright.

Jensen winced in reaction when he imagined Brandon, knowing full well that the other alpha would punch him for this, for losing Brandon's brother to something so awful, and Jensen wouldn't try to dodge the hit. He deserved it, after all. Brandon was untrained, didn't know their ways or their customs, didn't know his own ancestry, but he _was_ an alpha, whether he knew it or not, whether he believed it or not. Jensen had stolen a fertile from him and then let that fertile be taken for death. He couldn't imagine his anger if someone had done that to him, if someone had taken one of the precious fertile he guarded. 

He couldn't imagine that he was the kind of person to be on the other side of that -- to be the alpha doing something so irresponsible, so reprehensible. 

Jensen knew that he should walk back up to the mainhouse, should go ferreting for the sat phone, but he used the excuse that he didn't want to disturb the fertile in heat to avoid his problems. He didn't want to talk to them right now. He didn't want to hear Mrs. Padalecki sobbing down the phone when he admitted the truth.

He held the latch on the cabin door and walked in, pushing past all the things he knew he should be doing, knew he should be dealing with, and he heard the shouts of _'Dad!'_ and _'Daddy!'_ and felt such painful joy try to prick at his heart. He tried to smile for them, crouching down to take them in his arms as they placed their paws against his chest and legs. He ruffled their fur and muttered some meaningless words that he couldn't remember, watching as they slowly got distracted with play, waiting for dinner.

He got that same sinking sensation but worse when he remembered he'd have to tell _them_ too, and that was worse.

Because they wouldn't understand. Not until they were old enough to have forgotten Jared almost entirely. Until their mother was just a figment from their past that they recalled only distantly.

Jensen had no stomach for food that night, sitting at the table, both Katie and Genevieve glancing at him occasionally, worry in their eyes that Jensen didn't bother responding to. The mated pair had decided to spent the last few days of heat together, the stress of the incident making Katie want her fertile safe and home, somewhere where she could keep an eye on her mate, and Jensen understood the impulse. Wished he still had the option.

The two females ended up eating for him, regurgitating it for his cubs in his stead, and he was grateful, he was, but he just couldn't find the energy, the emotion, to express it.

The apathy, though, couldn't hold for long.

"We're headed to bed," Genevieve said, standing in the doorway to their bedroom, Katie already settling the couple's many cubs down for the night. "Is there--...Do you need anything else?"

"No," he replied, looking down at the pad of blankets where his own children were sleeping. 

"Alpha..." she murmured, voice too heartfelt -- full of that fertile sensitivity and love that Jensen had grown used to in his own bed. Grown used to holding in his own arms, and she smelled thick of heat, but it wasn't the same. Didn't hit him right. She didn't smell like Jared. "If there's anything we can do..."

"No," he said again, this time faster, coming out sharper than he intended and he sighed. "No, thank you. Thank you for...all of this. I'll be--" He wasn't going to be fine. Nothing about this was fine. This wasn't something that someone just left behind. "I just need some time."

"Of course..." she replied, but she sounded doubtful.

He waited in the light spilling out from their room, waited, feeling her eyes on his back, until the door slipped slowly shut and left him in darkness with his cubs. He lay down with them, staring up at the shadowed ceiling, hearing their muted kitten snoring off to his side -- remembering him and Jared laying on either side of the sleeping bundle, Jared laughing at their little wheezing noises, putting a hand over his mouth when one of them would yawn widely, baring tiny kitten teeth and wrinkling their tongue.

He remembered Jared's own slow self discovery, accepting his place as mother only hesitantly, always certain that he was somehow going to fuck his kids up. Always certain that somehow his own self-doubt would transfer to them, like it was genetic, like he couldn't help it. Jensen remembered Jared's exhausted smile, the day he'd given birth, when he'd finally been able to shift back and hold his blind little cubs in his hands, cradle them outside of his body for the first time, and Jensen had never felt so proud. 

Never felt so full.

And now all he felt was empty.

He didn't remember falling asleep that night, but the next thing he knew he was being prodded awake by Tristan, who was murmuring something at him that Jensen couldn't quite process.

"Tristan?" he mumbled, rolling over slowly to glance at his cub. 

_'Dad,'_ his son said again, voice hushed in his head like he was telling a secret.

"What is it?" Jensen asked, half sitting up on his elbows and lifting a hand to rub over his face.

_'Dad I feel...weird.'_

"Weird?" Jensen frowned. "Weird how?"

 _'I dunno!'_ Tristan protested. _'Just...weird!'_

"Tristan, you're not helping me here," Jensen replied, agitated, and worry beginning to flood through him, that maybe he hadn't stopped the disease from coming back here after all. He reached out blunderingly in the dark, until he could find his son's coat, hauling him in. "Where? What feels weird? What does it feel like?"

 _'I dunno,'_ his cub whined again evasively, pressed to his father's chest. _'Shaky. Like I'm cold but I'm not.'_

Jensen swallowed dryly, fingers carding through fur.

"Okay..." he said, but had nothing else. "Okay."

 _'Feels...'_ Tristan was trembling now and Jensen could feel it under his fingers. _'It feels like when I gotta go, but I don't have to go.'_

"Oh god," Jensen groaned. "Tristan, please tell me you did not just give me a heart attack over _indigestion."_

 _'Dad--'_ the cub started out, fear in his voice, and Jensen sat up immediately, putting his own emotions to the side and holding his son in his arms.

"Shh," he murmured. "It's okay, it'll be okay. I'm here. Just breath, okay buddy?" His hand ran over Tristan's fuzzy head. "Just breath. I'm right here with you and I'm not going anywhere."

The cub nodded and whined before going quiet, burrowing in against Jensen's shirt. The alpha shifted to settle himself back against the wall of the cabin, his fear still there and unavoidable as Tristan trembled and mewled, tremors running through him and Jensen trying to comfort him with little, meaningless sounds.

There wasn't much else he could do, and the helplessness only served to remind him of how little good he was -- an alpha who would only watch and mourn. He hadn't been able to do anything for Jared, and now he felt like he wasn't able to do anything for his son.

But it had to just be indigestion, he was sure. Or just the flu. It was just a normal, childhood sickness. It was just something normal, a parent staying up with their kid through the night to wait it out.

But it wasn't that.

It just also wasn't what Jensen feared.

Around three in the morning, two hours after Jensen had been awoken, he felt his son twitch, body jerking before it shifted, lengthening and growing in Jensen's arms, fur turning to skin, and Tristan collapsed against him, sweaty and exhausted and unconscious, and Jensen clasped him close.

"Oh god," he murmured to himself, one hand coming up to hold Tristan's limp head against his shoulder, and for a moment he could only breathe through his relief. Eventually he set his son down, leaning in to check his breathing, his heart rate, pressing his hand to Tristan's forehead to find no high temperature and everything else normal.

A perfectly normal, healthy first shift.

Jensen choked out a sob, smiling a little.

He reached for a sheet, swaddling the toddler in it before leaning back against the wall again, Tristan laying over his lap. The poor kid was tuckered out. Healthy, but tuckered out. Jensen reached out to brush some of the dark hair from the boy's sweaty brow, the light too wan to get a good look, but seeing his son's human face for the first time.

Jensen felt the same grieving smile touch his lips.

"...your mom so wanted to be here for this," he murmured, purely to himself. Tristan's breath was slow and warm again his father's wrist. "He loves--...He loves you so much. He wanted to see this so badly."

Jared had been so damned worried, so damned uptight about the whole thing, certain he'd done something wrong to delay Tristan's first shift. He'd obsessed over it.

Now it was here, had happened, and Jared was miles from them, off in the wilderness somewhere with animals that wanted to hurt him, dying from a disease that no cat deserved. And Jensen had no way to tell him. No way to share this moment with his mate like they'd shared everything else in the last three years.

The apathy couldn't hold in the face of it and Jensen clutched his son close, grateful for what he had, but mourning all that he had lost. He wasn't ready to say goodbye to a mate like Jared.

He just didn't know what to do about it.


	18. Chapter 18

Jared's paws ached.

He'd adjusted to life in the wild back when he was seventeen and alone in the woods in his tent, having to eat whatever he could hunt down. His body had hardened itself to that over time, though it _had_ taken time. Time for his reflexes to sharpen, for his muscles to build, for his coat to thicken in winter, to learn how to walk quietly enough that he could sneak up on prey. He'd had to learn how to track by scent and how to keep down raw squirrel, had to take care of himself in a whole different way than he was used to.

He was fairly certain it was only his father's training, from going out to camp all the time as kids, that he made it all. He knew how to pitch a tent, how to light a fire -- knew the basics, at least, and it had kept him afloat.

But one thing he learned quickly was that it took a long time to build up calluses on his soft, unworn paws.

It was one thing to shift into a cat once every month or so, go running around the soft, unpacked dirt of his family's expansive backyard. It was quite another to walk for miles every day, looking for food, the pads of his feet landing on rocks and sticks and jagged edges. The first few weeks he caught nothing and lived entirely off of the collection of bean tins and MREs he'd bought. He'd thought he'd gotten so many, but it was amazing how fast they went -- how much his body clamored for food when he wasn't eating all the time.

He'd never thought he'd eaten that much until he was trying to eke by on a third of a tin of beans a day, his body consuming itself for energy.

Once he'd joined his pride though, things in that department had gotten easier, and by then his paws had adjusted. It still took him awhile to get used to walking around barefoot as a human, but no one else in the pride had shoes(except for a few errant pairs for going into town on official business -- and Jensen looked _hilariously_ weird in his 'I'm an official alpha, take me to your leader, human beings' outfit). Three years later, Jared was used to padding around barefoot, his cubs following him and biting at his ankles.

In true mountain hobo redneck fashion.

It turned out, however, that even a few years of that couldn't prepare someone for walking and running for more than twelve hours a day. Four days after he'd been abducted, Jared had bloody cracks in the pads of his paws that ached something fierce, and the only good thing about them was that they made the pain in his muscles seem trivial. Thankfully Gedeon wasn't as intense since the altercation with Jensen and the others. Now that he knew they were off the hunting grounds and knew that no one was coming to take Jared away, they fell back to a more sedate pace. The alpha seemed to have _some_ sense of pity, or perhaps he was just in a good mood, because he didn't harp on Jared's limping or tell him to pick it up. If anything, they seemed to slow down even more, until Jared found it _almost_ bearable.

He was so concerned with his own aches and pains that he didn't notice that there was another reason for their lessened gait until well into the night. 

The moon was a sliver in the sky, a hangnail and little else, ghosting by on the sea of the clouds, and there was little light to see by save that of the Milky Way, clustered and shining in the dark. It made it hard to see, even with his sharp cat vision, and he spent the better part of the evening carefully picking his way over the ground.

He didn't notice until they stopped that no one was watching at him.

He was bathing one of his paws, the callus having cracked open and bleeding slowly but freely, when he heard the murmur of the saber's voices. He glanced over, seeing three of them gathered around the fourth -- Pyotr, who was laying on the ground, vigorously licking his wounds. Jared winced when he saw a flap of flesh moving back and forth with every brush of the rough tongue. None of the wounds looked good. Jared could tell just from looking at them that they were infected, the flesh blistering red and pus having soiled the fur all the way down Pyotr's leg.

He had to be running a fever by now, with a wound that big and an infection that intense, and Jared wrinkled his noise when the wind shifted and the scent hit him -- slightly sweet and fetid, living flesh rotting off a body not yet dead.

Jared wasn't loving the state of his paws, but he knew for certain he wouldn't be able to walk at all, were he in Pyotr's state.

Pyotr, though, just kept licking and biting at himself, jerking and laughing every time something hurt, his body twitching like a horse with too many flies.

 _'What do we do?'_ Varushka was asking, her head tilted to the side.

 _'We keep going,'_ Gedeon declared -- his motto and mantra, as far as Jared could tell.

 _'And Pyotr?'_ Dmitri chimed in.

 _'He keeps up or he doesn't.'_ Gedeon looked at his siblings. _'The same as it is for everyone else.'_

The supposed alpha unfolded himself, turning to resume his place at the head of the group, tail shifting around as he did so. He paused in mid step, looking down at Pyotr with a hard expression -- a hard expression that contained something else, something that surprised Jared. Fear.

Or at least something like it.

 _'Pull yourself together,'_ he commanded to his brother. _'We have a long way to go yet. And we can only go this slow for so long.'_

Pyotr looked up at him, eyes like empty moons, blinking and staring past or through or into Gedeon before he bared his teeth in an ugly, grin -- grotesquely innocent and Jared shivered. Gedeon didn't flinch like Jared did, but he wrinkled his nose, as if in disgust, and walked forward. Jared would never have guessed that Gedeon was afraid of anything, let alone his headcase brother. Jared found Pyotr threatening, but then again, he found them _all_ threatening, and it wasn't like Gedeon showed the same kind of thing around Dmitri and Varushka.

The group set out again, Gedeon at the head, and Jared glanced back at Pyotr, seeing the cat stumbling after them. At this point it wasn't just the wounds that were the problem -- the infection looked bad and already smelled septic, which meant that Pyotr had to be running a pretty devastating fever. Jared wasn't about to go over and check though. The cat was unbalanced on the best of days -- Jared had no wish to see what he was like at one hundred and six degrees and hallucinating. 

Pyotr's haunting white eyes were dashing back and forth in his skull, looking around him, and whatever he was seeing was anyone's guess. His injuries were definitely keeping his pace at a lagging gait and Jared felt a little gratitude that he got a break without being the one to call attention to himself.

The fact that Jared wasn't being run into the ground was nice for another reason too: it gave him some time to think.

He couldn't leave the others, not without risking spreading the sickness, but as far as he knew, humans couldn't catch it. It was an iffy bet, given that he didn't have anything to back that up with except rumor, but it was better than going back to his pride, or running to another pride, further up the mountain range. The only problem was that Gedeon was much faster and much stronger than Jared. Even if Jared set off at daybreak and walked the whole day, it was unlikely he'd run into civilization, and at the pace his paws kept him, Gedeon would catch up to him long before he found anything.

And even if Jared _did_ somehow manage to get away, get all the way through the hundreds of miles of Appalachian wilderness and stumble upon, by happenstance(because Jared may have lived in the wild for the last five years, but he still didn't know shit about finding his way), human civilization, he had no doubt that Gedeon would track him there. Perhaps the humans would eventually shoot and kill him, but not before Gedeon killed some of them, and Jared already felt like he had enough blood on his hands in this as it was.

Sure, he never did anything to provoke this, and he didn't blame himself, but he'd still never forgive himself if he led these dangerous animals straight into a crowd of innocent bystanders.

Having said that, the situation would be different if Gedeon let him go, and it was a long shot, but it was better than no shot at all.

 _'He's going to need medicine, you know,'_ Jared commented, jogging a few steps to walk next to Gedeon. The older saber ignored him, striding forward without looking to his side, so Jared continued unasked. _'We could stop by a human city or town, some antibiotics would--'_

 _'No,'_ Gedeon answered short and sharp at that suggestion, and Jared had been a long shot, but he pushed as far as he could.

 _'They have...poultices,'_ he tried, grabbing for whatever medieval-y sounding words he could come up with. _'To cure...spells like this.'_

 _'Don't talk to me like I'm a child,'_ Gedeon snapped, and he didn't know anything about disease or infection or antibiotics, but he sure as hell knew when someone was baby talking him, apparently. Jared sighed and dropped the pretense. 

_'Fine.'_ Jared frowned. _'Look, the fact of the matter is, your brother has a nasty infection, and if it gets much worse, he's gonna eat it--'_ Gedeon gave him a baffled look. _'--die. He's gonna die.'_

_'If he dies from an injury like that, he deserves it for being weak.'_

Jared snorted.

 _'That's not how disease_ works. _It doesn't matter if you're strong or weak or whatever. Look, he's sick. Humans make..._ things _to get rid of sickness. Hell, maybe they could help you with your eyes.'_

 _'Never trust anything that walks on two legs,'_ Gedeon responded immediately, like he was reciting something, but stopped. He glanced behind himself at his limping brother, then forward again.

'We _walk on two legs,'_ Jared reminded him, skipping over whatever weirdness just happened there.

 _'No,'_ Gedeon replied. _'We don't.'_

It took Jared a moment to figure that out. To process it and have it come out the other side as a cogent thought. They were ailure, after all. They had two forms. Their cat form and their human form. So of course they sometimes walked on two legs. Unless they--

 _'You don't shift?'_ he blinked. 'Ever?'

Yeah, Jared definitely couldn't live like that. He liked his cat form well enough, and had grown into it in the two years he'd lived alone, and more so in the three he'd lived with the pride, but being human was irrevocably part of him. Something that he'd never fully give up, and wasn't sure he wanted to.

 _'The sickness cured us of the shifting,'_ Gedeon responded, then looked at Jared. _'This is our only shape -- we are true cats, not halflings saddled with Saul'hrao's curse.'_

 _'Wait-- You mean you_ can't _shift? At all?'_ He boggled at the other cat, and sure, he hadn't seen any of the sabers in human form yet, but he'd figured that was just because of the situation. Because they were on the run, and stronger and faster in this form than the other. No one had ever told him that the Yellowstone Virus prohibited shifting. The idea made him shiver, then made him feel a little bit sick when he remembered that it was a distinct possibility that _he_ was infected too.

He made it a priority, an entry on his mental checklist, to shift first thing in the morning, after the other sabers had gone to sleep and before Jared settled down to rest. He felt an itching need to see his hands, to feel his face, to know that he still had the ability to access the human form he still saw as himself -- still identified as his true self. He needed to know that that face was still there, still existed, that he hadn't lost it.

Jensen had made a lot of progress towards Jared appreciating his ailure heritage, but he hadn't even known he was a werecat until he was thirteen. The entire development of his mind, from toddlerhood on up, had been one of a seemingly normal human boy. Sure, he'd never fit in, always felt the odd man out, always _noticed_ that he was somehow, unnameably, undefinably different, but he'd never guessed 'inhuman.' Not until all the truth had come out.

And even that hadn't answered why he was still different from his brothers.

Those answers had had to wait six years and some two thousand miles.

He didn't think of himself as human anymore, but he didn't quite think of himself as ailure, either. Despite the fact that it wasn't true genetically, he viewed himself as a sort of cultural hybrid. And the idea of being trapped in this body, like a cage he couldn't escape, until the disease took him, made his skin crawl.

He was suddenly very aware of every piece of fur on him, every swish of his tail as he walked.

He shook his head. 

_'That's...awful,'_ he continued, thinking of the humans who'd done this, forty eight years ago. They'd taken so much -- not only the ability to shift, but the ability to walk in the sun, and Jared knew how important that was to his people.

 _'The humans tried to kill us,'_ Gedeon responded, tone uncaring. _'But they didn't succeed. They only made us_ stronger. _Saul'hrao cursed us with the shifting, made us trapped between two forms and never whole in either one. The sickness was supposed to kill us, but it didn't -- it's not awful at all. I have no desire to lose my teeth and my claws. I have no desire to be naked and defenseless and standing on two legs. That isn't what I am. Isn't what we ever should have been. This is the form we were born to be.'_

 _'Hands can be pretty useful,'_ Jared reminded, but jerked when the larger cat's head swiveled to look at him.

 _'What are you doing?'_ the dominant asked, his cloudy eyes narrowing and Jared stumbled a little. _'Why are you asking all these questions?'_

 _'Nothing! It's nothing,'_ he said, far too fast and he was crap at lying. He'd always been crap at lying. _'Look. It's like I said. Your brother has an infection. It's just going to get worse unless he gets treatment.'_

_'If he wants to survive, he must fight. You want me to weaken my pride by begging for help -- and worst of all, from humans. You forget too easily that they did this to us, to all of us.'_

_'Make up your mind -- either you like the sickness for 'curing' you, or you hate them for giving it to you. You can't have it both ways.'_

_'They tried to_ kill _us,'_ Gedeon reminded with a growl. _'Their desire was to wipe us off of the face of the earth and take the power that we had for their own. It just so happened that their weapon failed them -- that it made us greater,_ stronger. _But that doesn't forgive them their intent. It doesn't change the fact that they shot down the ones that survived.'_

 _'They didn't have a choice!'_ Jared defended. No one had _liked_ what had happened at Yellowstone -- other than the fanatics, of course. His Uncle Roger had been there, back in 1965. He still got a haunted look in his eyes whenever anyone asked him about hunting down the diseased ailure. Just because he'd done it didn't mean he liked it. And it didn't mean that he felt any kind of moral vindication, even if his actions probably ended up saving thousands of lives. _'The infected dominants had gone_ mad. _They were killing the fertile. Killing their own cubs. If they'd been allowed to live--'_

Jared cut off though, because he knew what the end to that sentence was, and it wasn't good.

_If they'd been allowed to live, they would have ended up just like you._

And Gedeon would never be convinced of his own culpability. If Jared had learned anything, he'd learned that much. In Gedeon's mind they were always the victims, always the important ones. They were the underdogs, who'd been beat down but somehow managed to get back up again. The idea that he was wrong, that he was evil was more than merely a concept he'd rejected -- it was one he hadn't even acknowledged as a possibility.

The dominant gave him a peripheral look, something like curiosity and suspicion at the same time, and Jared looked away. This wasn't the time to fight fire with fire.

 _'...It sucked. There's no denying that. But they did the only thing they could in that situation,'_ he finished, finally.

 _'Gullible,'_ Gedeon muttered in response. He paused at an outcropping on the mountainside before changing course slightly, descending the slope towards the valley. _'You believe their lies so easily. Your head is fogged with them. You've lived your life contained in the cage that the humans and the cougars built for you, little more than a pet for their amusement. We come to free you and you treat us like the enemy.'_

It took all of Jared's weak and untrained restraint to hold back on that. Kidnapped, dragged across the wilderness, threatened with rape and brutality and forced to watch a dear friend killed -- and Gedeon still thought that doing all that made him the hero of the story. Jared wanted nothing more than to give him the tongue lashing he so righteously deserved. To just go off on him, to prove just how little freedom he gave and what a monster he was.

But there were two reasons that that was a bad idea. Jared was trying to work his way through a conversation to find out more about his captors as well as find out if he could somehow talk Gedeon into letting him go to a human town, and yelling at the temperamental and violent cat was not the best way to achieve that goal.

But the second reason Jared had a harder time admitting to himself: the fierce hate and rage that had burned cold in Gedeon's eyes when he'd promised to hobble Jared if he continued to defy him. Jared hated himself for his fear, for ducking his head and taking the coward's way out, but he couldn't help it.

He was terrified of Gedeon making good on his threat.

So he just held his breath through the dizzying wave of anger, biting back words that would only end up with him carrying another wound to nurse. Behind them, the other sabers were making their way down the embankment, and Pyotr stumbled and fell, skidding down over the rocks and passed Jared, who flinched out of the way automatically. The giant dominant's claws unsheathed, scratching violently against the rock, a smear of blood from his wounds left in his wake as he came to a stop.

Jared stayed stiff, then glanced over at Gedeon as if for guidance before cursing himself.

He hated that his instinct, both as an ailure and as a fertile, guided him to look for an alpha. Gedeon was no alpha. He was strong and undoubtedly powerful, he lead and commanded and decided, but that didn't make him an alpha. Jared _knew_ alpha. He'd been mated to one for three years. Gedeon might have been the most dominant cat in the area, but he had none of the qualities of a true alpha.

He didn't put the needs of others before the needs of himself.

 _'Get up,'_ Gedeon growled, sounding disgusted as he strolled over to Pyotr, who was watching with those hungry eyes, like he hadn't eaten in days, and Gedeon came to a stop a few feet out. _'We don't have time for your fumbling.'_

 _'Geds,'_ Dmitri started, moving over to sniff at Pyotr's wounds, wrinkling his nose a little. _'Are you sure we shouldn't do something?'_

 _'What would we do anyways?'_ Varushka asked coldly, strolling up to sit next to Gedeon, her eyes sliding over to him. _'He's a weak link. You know it.'_

 _'Cease your hissing,'_ Gedeon replied. To the rest he said: _'Everyone pulls their own weight, same as always. Either he gets up or he stays down -- it's entirely on him.'_

The dominant turned away, padding back down the slope again, and Jared paused, glancing between Gedeon and the other three. Pyotr was, disappointingly, pushing himself to his feet, and Jared frowned, jogging forward again to catch up with Gedeon, not prepared to give up their somewhat productive, if still incredibly grating conversation.

 _'You don't care? Even about your own brother?'_ he asked, wondering if there was even an ounce of humanity in the other cat. Of course, Gedeon would probably strongly object to being asking anything about having 'humanity' when he was clearly not human. He glanced at the skull that hung around Gedeon's neck, the size of it -- so tiny and fragile and familiar, still made Jared's heart feel tight. It was the mother in him. He couldn't forget his own cubs at that age. _'...I supposed I shouldn't be surprised. You killed a kitten.'_

Gedeon glanced at him, then away. 

_'I didn't kill Borislava,'_ he replied, monotone.

_'Borislava?'_

_'Our sister. The only fertile of our litter. She was born still -- it was my father who fashioned it to be worn around the neck. I took it from him when I became alpha.'_ Gedeon turned his head slightly, eyes drifting to the shifting necklace that swung between Jared's front legs. _'It is like yours -- a symbol. A reminder.'_

Jared's face became pinched, but it was more like pity than anger, this time. The tiny skull, dead so early, representing so many dreams and lives lost, was nothing like the necklace that his mate had given him: a promise, from his dominant, of security and devotion. A promise that Jared still clung too, even now, in the dark.

 _'...you know I'm going to be just like her, don't you, Gedeon?'_ Jared asked, like he could make a connection. Like it was worth it to even try. _'I'm a fertile. There's no magic exceptions. She died from the disease, just like the others. And me... You didn't save me. You've condemned me.'_

Gedeon whirled then, turning to look Jared in the eye and coming to a halt. Jared reared back slightly, but Gedeon didn't take a step closer.

 _'You are_ mine,' the dominant claimed. _'You have always been mine, and even if you die, you will still belong to me. I've waited for you for a hundred moons, waited for you to come back to me.'_ The anger seemed to fade, and he pulled back slightly. _'We have a destiny, you and I. We are two sides of the same coin. The gods take many things, my fertile. But not you. You are not the payment. You are the reward.'_

For a moment, the two of them just stood there, at an impasse, tails twitching, before Gedeon turned back to walking.

 _'Now be quiet. I don't want to talk anymore,'_ he commanded, setting their pace as he moved forward. Overhead, the moon was winking and blind, a sliver set in the sky and almost gone. Jared felt it like a countdown.

He sighed, shaking his head as he fell in.

 _'God. For a second there,'_ he muttered to himself. _'We were almost having a conversation.'_


	19. Chapter 19

The first thing Pyotr knew was hunger, unending appetite, and the second thing he knew was that all the world would never be enough. When his eyes opened for the first time, vision coming in bleary and fuzzy, a strange palette of colors that blended together and shone at the edges, he felt nauseous, sick with all the sound and the movement and the need. 

The unending need to consume. 

Father would come back from hunts to regurgitate meat and Pyotr remembered the warmth of the half digested mush, bloody and partially chewed. He would swallow without even pausing, eating and eating until one of the other cubs shouldered him out of the way. If he could have, he would have eaten it all -- he never understood why the others would take from him when he was so hungry.

Always, always so hungry.

The world didn’t make much sense, full of people that took things and did things and Pyotr never understood. They didn’t need anything. They weren’t real. They couldn’t feel hunger or pain like he could. They couldn’t feel anything at all, and yet they always took, as if they could feel the same way that he did.

They weren’t like him. 

They weren’t real and alive and whole. 

He knew he didn’t know much -- his father had told him so -- but he knew that.

No one could ever hunger as he did.

\-----

When Pyotr was small, the sounds that came out of his father were sharp and quick, darting through the air like bugs and fading into twilight.

Pyotr used to watch them, chase them as they flitted about, until their father would cuff him and make more sounds, sounds that Pyotr didn’t care to understand. Not until later.

His father told many stories, but it was years until Pyotr understood that that’s what the sounds were. He heard them in his head, some crisp and shot and some long, pauses in places and not in others. It wasn’t a single, continuous sound, like the bugs in the summer night, nor was it a simple, direct sound like a hiss or a growl.

The sound didn’t have meaning, so it must have just been a noise that fathers made -- something unavoidable, like the sound of paws dragging through leaves. A side effect of motion and weight. Pyotr just ignored it. It wasn't important.

But then Pyotr’s littermates began to makes the noises too. 

His head was always full of their noises, quicker and less distinct than their father, often blending together and making his head hurt. He didn’t make the noises. When he was little, he thought it was a good thing. He was quieter, after all. A better hunter. He didn’t inconvenience others with sounds.

But as he got older, sometimes father would make noise directly into Pyotr’s head, staring intently at him. He would make the noise again, sharper, harder, and then again, and Pyotr would stare up at him. Then the paw would come out of nowhere and Pyotr would find himself face down in the dirt, confused and head spinning, scratches against his shoulder and father’s noises very loud between his ears.

Pyotr would get up and follow after father, because perhaps that was what he wanted.

But that wasn’t what Father wanted. Pyotr tried staying still instead. But it wasn’t that either.

Whenever Father would look at him and make the noises, Pyotr would try something else. But it wasn’t play, and it wasn’t sleep. It wasn’t to run or to sit and it wasn’t to yowl or to be quiet. Pyotr kept guessing, but every time he ended with Father’s claws in his skin or teeth around his neck, while the others didn’t -- they just made the noises back, and everything was okay.

It wasn’t until years that Pyotr couldn’t count had passed until he began to notice the differences in the noises.

He’d just never understood that that was important. He never knew that his father and brothers were capable of communicating thoughts. He'd never even known they had them.

He'd never known that ‘water’ meant the cool wet that they drank in the river, or that ‘sun’ meant the big light that hurt the eyes. Or that each sound _meant_ something. It surprised him to find out that the things that he lived with were able to do that.

All the same, he finally began to understand why his family kept making sounds at each other. Why when Father made the noise _‘stay here’_ and Pyotr followed that he got shaken in Father’s jaws. Why when Gedeon said _‘come here’_ that he ended up spiting on Pyotr when Pyotr would ignore him. Why everyone else seemed to understand things when Pyotr didn’t.

The world was made out of symbols -- no _real_ things but instead signs put forward in place of the real. An idea, intangible and false, instead of the simplistic joy of hot red meat in his teeth. Pyotr didn’t know why they did it. It seemed so much more confusing this way.

Except then he began to understand the stories.

Father had always made noises at length during the last part of the evening, when they were all settling down to sleep for the day. The others would sit and stare at Father as if riveted and Pyotr had always been confused until he’d come to understand that the noises were symbols. The stories made the symbols worth it.

Father told them about the fertile -- cats that carried grace with them. Power. They were weak in body and needed to be kept, needed to be controlled, but to those that controlled them they could give unimaginable gifts.

Father had said many things about making new cubs, that only the fertile could bring new life. Their pride was decimated, ruined and left with so little, but there was still hope. There was still a fertile out there and Father said it would bear them cubs, stay still underneath them and carry the rebirth of their people.

That alone was cause for celebration. But their father also told them one other secret.

That the fertile carried a power inside of them. Power enough to cure the sickness in them, surely, and make them whole again, through the gift of its body. Power that, once, controlled the sun itself.

There had been a time when the sun had never risen, when the world had been a paradise, but the fertile of their people had brought the sun back -- for a reason that Pyotr could never truly understand. Father had said the fertile, while powerful, were also easily led astray by their emotions, easily duped and foolish, and perhaps that was why. They were children, incapable of understanding anything.

They needed guidance. 

But that was alright. After all, that was why the dominants existed. They couldn’t control the sun, but the fertile could, and the dominants controlled the fertile.

And Pyotr began to believe that if they could find it, find the fertile their father had always spoken of, that perhaps they could ask it to keep the sun down.

After all, they were Тот кто принести рассвет -- the ones who brought the sun. They were the ones who turned Saul'hrao's ear, as well as his lecherous eye. If they could pray to bring up the sun, surely they could pray to keep it down. 

And Pyotr began to dream of the wondrous fertile they'd find, perfect and waiting for them. It would be waiting in a gully, glowing and luminescent -- not painful but beautiful, like the moon. It would have been waiting there its whole life, unmoving like stone. It would have been patient and good, knowing to wait for the ones that would guide it, take it away into the night. It would smile when they came out of the darkness and tell them that it had been waiting for them all this time, that it loved them and belonged to them. It would look into Pyotr’s eyes and love him unconditionally, because that was what it was meant to do. It was made for them, after all. It would end their sickness, lift it from them and give them freedom. It would pray to the capricious gods, and as the sun tried to rise in the sky, it would not. 

And then they would laugh. They would all laugh and run through the eternal night together, and never be afraid.

\-----

When they did find the fertile, it was nothing like Pyotr had imagined.

It wasn’t waiting for them, serene and lovely. Instead it was trouncing around like an ordinary cat and worse, with other dominants. Dominants that weren’t _them._ It had no idea what it was supposed to be and Pyotr hated it at first for not being like he’d dreamed it.

And it just got worse. The fertile was noisy and difficult, always putting up fights and lashing back and forth with Gedeon. It ate their food without helping to hunt and now refused to enter their dens during the day. It never looked at him with the wonderfully serene eyes he’d imagined, but instead full of all sorts of things it wasn’t supposed to have. 

It was as vain and stupid as the cougar fertiles that Pyotr’s brothers had taken.

Pyotr had always assumed that all their flaws had come from their cougar lineage -- and the disappointment he felt to find his childhood dream just as demanding and willful, just as ugly with hubris, was crushing at first. They’d worked so hard. Come so far. 

And it had all been for a trophy hardly worth having.

But his father whispered to him at night from his belly: _have faith, just wait. I promised you this much._

After they’d gone to get the fertile they’d kept running. Pyotr didn’t know where, but he never knew. He just followed the others, followed their pawprints. The others were where food was, where his appetite could be slacked, and he’d never felt a compulsion to be anywhere else. They were useful to him, so he followed, like he always did. It was harder this time, though, for some reason.

His legs hurt and his neck hurt and he had dark scratches over the sides of his chest. He only remembered how he’d gotten them sometimes -- others, there was just pain and confusion.

He’d roll over on his side during the day, in their den, and a rock would press up into his wound and he’d laugh and laugh with pain, until the tears bled into his fur and clumped. He bit at his skin, trying to tear the pain away, rip it out, but it didn’t work. It just felt worse, and he’d chuckle to himself with each throb, giggling as it racked through him, making him shiver. The pain burned, felt awful, and he knew he didn’t deserve it.

He was a good boy, after all.

He’d always been a good boy.

But at least they had the fertile now. The fertile would fix him. Even if it wasn’t as good as he was expecting -- it still had the power to touch the sun, to command the heavens. The power to heal Pyotr with its grace.

And it was loving by nature.

It wanted to heal and mend, wanted to care for and grow, and Pyotr knew it loved him. It was born loving him, because it was his. No matter how stupid it could be sometimes, it would help him, in the end.

After all, that was its job. The reason it existed at all.

It seemed to be taking a long time though: the moon had changed itself in between the sleeping, shifting smaller and smaller, darker and darker, and Pyotr couldn’t remember the days anymore, but still, the fertile hadn’t healed him yet. Hadn’t _saved_ him like it was supposed to. Lazy, stupid beast that wouldn’t carry its own weight.

Soon enough Pyotr would make sure it carried its weight -- carry the cubs it was supposed to, like a good fertile.

Pyotr walked along behind his siblings, and for some reason, his paws weren’t working right, kept landing oddly and to the side, and every jarring step sent more pain running up his joints. He kept laughing, giggling to himself as tears ran down his snout, his teeth grit, and Varushka hissed to him.

_‘Shut up, you idiot.’_

Pyotr glanced over at her, panting and she looked warped, bleeding out at the edges. He swayed towards her and she pranced away, her expression like something surprised -- it reminded Pyotr of the deer, the way their eyes went wide and black, empty holes of fear, when he held them down, when he killed them piece by piece, quivering under his paws as he took fur and hide in his mouth and pulling it away.

Varushka jogged a few steps ahead and Pyotr continued on, kept walking until the world seemed to drag by. He was sure, though, that they were getting close. After all, they had been walking so long. They would find the perfect place, the hidden gully, and the fertile would give itself to them all, please them, and give them all the power it held, just like Father had said.

Just like Father had said.

The hours ticked by unnoticed but long, dragging out until the night seemed timeless, stretching on forever -- until it seemed like Pyotr had always been here, always been walking through this night.

At least, until the sky began to lighten with dawn.

When they stopped, Pyotr settled down to lick the places that hurt, tasting metallic and sour. He bit off a piece of flesh that was hanging limp, chewing it in the back of his jaw.

He glanced up when he saw the fertile watching him, a strange look in its eyes. Its face was twisted and perhaps it was using its power. Perhaps it was trying to heal him.

In the background, his siblings were making noise.

_‘This is ridiculous. We’ve gone from walking to barely even moving. He’s barely dragging himself at this point -- we’re going so slowly that we’re coming to a complete stop just to let him catch up. We can’t afford to wait for him to stumble his way forward.’_

_‘So what do we do?’_

_‘What we always do.’_

_‘We’re leaving him?’_

_‘Do we have a choice? Do either of you want to carry his weight?’_

There was quiet then, and Pyotr wanted them to stay that way. Their noises were so loud and Pyotr’s body hurt so bad, his head feeling spinny and wrong. He swallowed the grizzled dark flesh down his throat, water drooling from his jaws. 

He was hungry. Still.

_‘The sun is coming up. We can find shelter before the light hits, but he’ll just get in our way.’_

_‘Then let’s go -- get it over with.’_

_‘You’ve never made any secret of hating him.’_

_‘So? What does it matter. You’re just a little kiss up, always afraid to say the wrong thing.’_

_‘I just thought we were supposed to be_ pride.’

 _‘Shut up, both of you.’_ Gedeon’s noise was loud and commanding, and it rang fiercely in Pyotr’s pounding head. He groaned, rubbing and scratching at his face with his claws, trying to get it _out._

 _‘You know the rule,’_ Gedeon continued. _‘Never trust anything on two legs.’_ A pause. _‘Never let anything slow you down.’_

There was silence then, and Pyotr let out a breath, relieved for it. He rubbed his head against the soft grass and the crinkled leaves, feeling dim and numb, something close to cold, or what he’d imagined cold to feel like. He’d never felt it before -- until now. His body was shaking.

_‘Let’s go.’_

The voice was an order, and Pyotr knew orders. You followed orders. You followed them or you got cuffed, felt the sting of Father’s claws in your hide. So he stumbled to his feet, only to fall down again. He blinked, confused. He didn’t understand. Usually it didn’t work like that.

He glanced around, trying to find the thing that pushed him down, but it was sneaky, running off to hide in the dawn.

Pyotr wrinkled his nose and pushed himself to his feet again, shaking himself. The sensation was nauseating, made the world _spin_ around him, rotate up and flip over and he tumbled to the side, landing hard and letting out a loud crack of laughter as pain shot sharp straight through him and he writhed, body stretching over the grass as he tried to right himself. When he managed to open his eyes, the world beginning to get blurry with light, he could see his pride moving away. They were walking forward and Pyotr had to catch up.

He wriggled, moving forward by a few inches, claws gripping the earth, and he was so involved with it that, at first, he didn’t even notice that the fertile was still there. He had to catch up with this littermates, so they could burrow in together against the sun, like they always did.

But several minutes of futile struggling later, he still couldn’t get his legs to cooperate, and his siblings seemed so far away -- waiting for him, he thought. Waiting for him to catch up. 

Then movement out of the corner of his eye caught his attention and he glanced to the side, seeing the fertile, its funny dark eyes watching him. He spread his lips, tongue lolling, knowing that it wouldn’t leave him. It was in its nature to love, after all. It had always loved Pyotr, even when they were separate and waiting to find one another. Its power, its body, belonged to him.

The fertile walked over to him, paws brushing the pine needles, and it was beautiful. So beautiful. 

Before they found it, Pyotr never thought he'd see such beauty. In that respect, at least, the fertile was everything their father had ever promised, long and sleek, carrying the stripes of their people and the gift to carry more. To bring their kind back from the brink. He still didn't understand why it wouldn't let them use it. Why it wouldn't _want_ to be part of this: the glorious return of the Тот кто принести рассвет. No one would ever forget its name.

What was its name again?

 _'Pyotr,'_ the fertile said, looking down, and Pyotr didn't remember when the fertile got so close. He opened his mouth, beginning to pant, as cold as he was. His flesh felt like it was burning. And the sun would be coming soon.

He wanted to ask if the fertile would pray to keep the sun down, just this once, for him, just as he'd imagined when he was small. Even if the fertile was being difficult, it would never want him to hurt. It would never want him to _suffer._

 _'The fertile can't help themselves,'_ their father's voice reminded him. _'They are soft. That is why they need us. To protect them from themselves. To remind them of what they are. You must always remember that. It's your duty as a dominant. You must keep it in line, and in return it will love you. It will love you and bring you joy. Pyotr. Pyotr, listen! Listen to me, you cursed--'_

His head snapped back with the feel of his father's claws, and his head spun, the world shifting around dizzily.

 _'Pyotr...Pyotr, listen,'_ came the voice, but it was too soft to be his father. He looked up at the fertile, saw its hazelwood eyes looking into him. _'Pyotr, listen to me.'_

And Pyotr could do nothing but.

The sun was beginning to break the horizon, and Pyotr felt the tears begin to flow into his fur. He felt himself grow still, utterly captured by the fertile, and he could see it -- the beautiful creature of his youth, living and breathing inside of the fertile they'd captured. _Claimed_.

It really did exist.

The fertile moved its head next to his, so that its mouth was next to Pyotr's ear, ready to whisper the words. The prayer of life that would free him, finally, from the curse left by their mother's belly. It would bring the peace and freedom that their father had always promised -- that the fertile of Pyotr's dreams had always promised, again and again. Pyotr felt the wind shift over the valley, and the sun was-- the sun was so beautiful.

It was so beautiful.

 _'Pyotr,'_ the fertile murmured, so gentle, a comfort against the pain that consumed him, and the last hold he had on the world. The last clutch that was tethering him, and the fertile would pull him back. The fertile would save him, just like it always promised it would. _'Pyotr, I want you to remember--'_

Anything, anything. He shut his eyes. He would do anything it asked of him if it would give him everything he wanted.

_'--as the sun rises--'_

Let it rise, let it rise, let it bring us back to life.

_'--when you're burning to death--'_

Let me be reborn. Let me be whole.

_'--when you're dying under Saul'hrao's gaze--'_

He will suffer. The True Traitor. The Uncaring. He Who Abandoned.

_'--I want you to remember...it was Brutus who killed you.'_

Pyotr's eyes snapped open.

The fertile was still there, next to him. It raised its head and looked him in the eyes, and there was no beauty there. Nothing but the fiery vengeance of the sun, all eating, all consuming, all ending. A fire even more hungry than the one in Pyotr’s belly: a fire that wanted to burn the world.

And Pyotr, who had never known cold before, felt everything in him came to a still, felt his blood slow and freeze, and he stared into the deathbringing eyes of the sun.

 _'It was_ Brutus _who killed you.'_ And the fertile's mouth opened, gaping with death, an endless gullet and teeth, so small, so ridiculously small and no fangs to speak of but Pyotr still felt the thing he’d never felt, the thing he’d heard spoken, the symbol, the word he’d never understood because he had never experienced the idea behind it: fear.

 _'I want you to think of him as you burn to death, you son of a bitch.'_ And then, impossibly, the fertile turned, and began to walk away.

Walk away from him like he was nothing. Like it had never promised him over and over again, like it hadn't given its _word_ to save him. Like _he didn't matter at all._

He roared, pushing to his feet, but his body could no longer move and he collapsed again into the leaves, struggling and flailing and scrabbling, claws slashing but finding no purchase. 

The fertile never looked back.

He roared at the top of his lungs, with all his might, flipping and twisting with anger and ready to kill it, to rip it apart for its betrayal, the filthy traitor. Filthy beast full of maggots and lye, a follower of the one who abandoned them, a spy in their midst. Taking back its word, taking back everything it had promised Pyotr again and again and again, now at the last minute, when he needed it so desperately.

And then the sun hit his coat and he screamed.

He felt it burning, felt his skin crawling over his body as he flipped like fish out of water, body turning this way and that in the dry earth to _put it out put it out put it out,_ but there was no fire. No flames. Just the ones burning under skin, in his flesh, consuming him like the fire had consumed their people. 

His eyes were rolling and everything was pain, everything was death, and he screamed for his littermates, his brothers, his sister. He screamed for his father, for mercy, please, for mercy.

But the fertile never looked back.


	20. Chapter 20

Jensen didn’t have to think about being an alpha -- it just came to him naturally.

It had always been there, been in his head, since he was a tiny cub. His mother had told him that even then, even blind and deaf and mewling, he’d been the biggest, he’d always surged to the teat, and that when his eyes finally opened, the first thing he did was start looking after his littermates. 

To the ailure, this was a divine spirit. It was a piece of the first cats that was slipped into the unborn body of a cub, a spark of life and leadership that shone whether or not the individual knew it. It was a calling. A right. It went beyond inclination and was soul deep. It was undeniable.

Jensen had always leaned more to the human conception of it though: that there was a natural spectrum of personality. That there were those who were out going and those who weren’t. Those who wanted to defend. Those who wanted to persecute. And those who wanted to lead.

Of course, it wasn’t all glory. Jensen also knew that his personality lent itself to egotism, and it had been pointed out to him more than once. He was a good person who wanted to do good things, certainly -- but he did, to an extent, want those good things to be recognized. And to perhaps be praised for them. He did enjoy having the pride look up to him. He liked knowing that he was important.

It was commonly said that alphas were far more concerned with their own honor than anyone else was. Jensen’s own grandfather, Nathaniel’hrao, had refused to yield when he’d lost the challenge issued by Jedediah. If he had, he would have been allowed to rejoin the pride, with no ill consequence. No one would have shamed or looked down on him. But an alpha was an alpha, always, and Jensen’s grandfather could no more bare his throat than Jensen could.

He’d never be able to recuse.

It didn’t matter that no one else would view it as a dishonor. Jensen would. He would feel it like shame against his skin. He was an alpha, born one and would hold his pride until he died.

At least, that’s what he’d always believed.

Now he sat on his mate’s overlook, a crop of rock that jutted out over the forest below, looking out over the river and the carpet of the Blue Ridge, stretching out all the way to the horizon -- he sat there, arms wrapped around his knees, and thought about Jared. How many times Jared had come out here, in the last three years, to watch the sky, to watch the river. How many times Jared had come out here with the cubs, quick hands keeping eager paws from going scrambling over the edge. 

He thought of walking up from pride ground, climbing the slope, to see Jared: sitting on the edge of the cliff, calves dangling over the edge, hands pressed back behind him and hair swept by the wind. And the sun lighting the low curve of his belly, swollen with cubs then, and only two weeks before he’d given birth. 

Jensen shut his eyes.

He could see, tattooed on the backs of his eyelids, Jared turning to look at him, the grey winter light reflecting in his eyes as he smiled, lips and cheeks stained with red from the harsh winds( _You’ll get sick -- c’mon, come back inside, lovely_ ), and the bright set of his teeth as his lips spread wide across his face( _come sit with me. Just for a bit? You gotta come and see the snow from here--_ ). He could remember how warm Jared’s stomach was under his hands, the impatient movements of cubs grown too big for their living space.

His breath hitched at the memory of their conversation, just a few months back, when Jared had come home from his trip to Wyoming, the two of them talking about the possibility of having another litter. 

He knew there was a part of it that had solely to do with him -- that he had to save Jared. That it was _his_ job, _his_ right, _his_ place. There was such a big part of it that was wound up in his identity, who he thought of himself and the alpha that he wanted to be. He felt it like a mark on him, written words declaring his failure.

And the rest of it was love, missing his mate, mourning their bond. The grief of losing a partner that had fit him so well -- a partner like Jared, who was beautiful and brave and so much stronger than he thought himself to be.

But the truth was, this wasn’t about Jensen.

This was about Jared, out there, alone and fighting.

Jensen couldn’t give up on that. He couldn’t let his pride, his preoccupation with honor and duty make him give in before the fight was over.

At that moment, the autumn wind cool and crisp and pushing the leaves over the edge of the cliff as Jensen looked out at the sky, he prayed that it wasn’t over yet.

“ _Here_ you are,” a voice interrupted his thoughts, and he glanced back over his shoulder to the treeline and saw Alona’s blonde head emerging, her long skinny legs bouncing her over the ground as she jogged up to him, still in shorts despite the dip in the weather. She had a sweater on though, the elastic bands of the arms crumpled around her wrists, picking at the cuffs, and she was smiling down at him as she slowed, walking the last few feet.

“I’ve been looking all over,” she said, and the minute she got close the wind gusted from behind, blowing the scent of her heat straight into him and he felt a shiver run up him -- he was mated, and Alona was like a sister to him, but his body was biologically programmed to respond a certain way. He made a face though, because really, she was _family._

“What are you doing out of the mainhouse?” he asked, maybe a little sterner than he intended. Having the fertile on pride ground for heat week had been sort of rough. For starters, the mainhouse was crammed full of about thirty fertiles in the height of their heat, and the scent ran all over their little settlement, regardless of walls. Jensen had heard plenty of moaning from dominants about walking around with what felt like permanent arousal.

It didn’t exactly help that the fertile were quite... _vocal_ in their affections, and even though he’d only been back for a day, Jensen had heard at least three separate instances of orgasmic moaning from inside of the building, and the betas guarding it looking distinctly uncomfortable.

But the other thing was that that kind of proximity, that kind of temptation, had many fertile leaving the mainhouse to go and spend the rest of heat week with their mates. Given the stress and fear of the attack, of having a beta dead and their regna missing, it comforted the mated pairs to be together.

Of course that meant in five months they were probably going to end up with one of the largest littergroups in the last several years.

“Looking for you,” she answered blithely, sitting down cross legged at the edge of the cliff. “I kind of already said that.”

Jensen couldn’t keep himself from rolling his eyes a little.

“I _meant_ \--”

“I know what you meant,” Alona interrupted, giving him a disapproving look. “And I’m fine. I’m here, right? Here and safe and if any monsters come out of the woods to eat me, you can defend my honor.”

“Don’t.” Jensen’s voice was like a cut, quick and sharp and sliced. He shook his head slightly. “Don’t trivialize it like that.” 

Not the thing that Jared was enduring. Like being kidnapped, like being _violated_ like that was something that could be joked about, dismissed. Like Jensen was blowing this all out of proportion for going on lock down. 

Alona’s eyes immediately fell to the ground, shame fluttering across her features.

“...sorry,” she muttered, young and passionate and sometimes too quick to speak. Jensen breathed out. He couldn’t hold the anger against her. It was true after all: she was here and safe. So long as that was the case, he couldn’t be anything but grateful.

“It’s alright,” he shrugged.

“It’s not. I shouldn’t have--...” She glanced over to him. “...how did he look?”

“Jared?” he asked, as if he didn’t know. Jensen tried to think back to the last image he had of his mate, sitting lonely and still on the edge of a ravine, the fading sunlight hitting his silvery fur, casting him in harsh relief, like a statue carved there hundreds of years ago yet still unworn by the rain.

Jensen swallowed.

“He was...” He looked out at the sky, blue and untouched, seemingly endless. The words that floated through his head seemed pale and useless, nothing like the cut of Jared in his head, an image carved out in light and stone. He pressed his lips together. “He was surviving.”

He didn’t want to imagine whether or not it had happened yet. He didn’t want to consider whether or not something like that was happening to his mate. He didn’t want the visuals. The mere thought of any other cat taking Jared’s back was bad enough, but Jensen would have backed off if Jared had chosen another mate. If that was what he wanted.

This wasn’t that.

The thought of _any_ fertile being held down, being pushed to the ground and mounted without consent was--

He shook his head. It wasn’t something he could deal with thinking about. A voice in his head reminded him that Jared had to deal with a lot more than just thinking about it. He winced.

“Is there--...What can we do?” Alona asked, a genuine, sweet desire to help in her voice. A naive desire too. If there was anything that could be done, Jensen wouldn’t be sitting out on Jared’s cliff, staring out into the air like a useless fool. His children were still back on pride ground, napping with Katie and Gen’s litter, a great pile of cubs that Jensen would have felt warm to watch, had it been in any other circumstance.

Jensen still hadn’t broken the news to their kids. And not just for the obvious reason that it would be hard, painful and heartbreaking.

Once their kids knew, it was an admission of defeat. It was going to be traumatic to them, and Jensen didn’t want to put them through that if it was for nothing. He didn’t want to make them deal with the idea that their mother wasn’t coming home only to get Jared back. But that was all based on the fantasy in his head where Jared strolled onto pride ground, healthy and whole and smiling, and everything turned out alright.

He knew it was a fantasy, but he couldn’t destroy the possibility of it. It felt like the moment he told their children, he was giving up on Jared completely. 

Saying goodbye to a mate that he couldn’t bear to lose.

And then there was the other thing.

"...I still haven't called his family," Jensen admitted, only half to Alona. Half to himself.

The young fertile tipped her head to the side, looking at him.

"I say... I say that I can't go down the mountain, not while everything's so--" He shook his head. "It's just an excuse though."

The sat phone was sitting in his office, and he told himself that the connection would be crappy and staticy and it'd probably cut out. He told himself it wasn't the right way to tell a mother that her cub was dead. Or as good as.

But they were all just excuses.

Jensen couldn't bear to tell anyone else, to reveal not only his shame, his failure as an alpha, to his mate, to his pride, to the world -- he couldn't reveal his loss. He couldn't stand the idea of anyone else seeing the hole it left in him, weakened and gaping, like someone would come for him then, to take advantage of the opportunity.

No one in his pride, his family, would do something like that to him. But the animal in him was waiting for a challenge, for someone to seek out his weakness and target it. To prove that Jensen wasn't a good enough alpha -- as if any more proof was needed than this.

Than losing the last fertile Dawnbringer to the wild. Than sitting here helpless while his own mate died alone and uncomforted.

He rubbed his hand across his mouth, the skin feeling hot and over sensitive. 

"I'm as weak as those other alphas thought me. A fool far too trusting."

"Jensen," Alona said, something like scolding in her voice. "It wasn't your _trust_ that led to this. _Humans_ didn't do this. Nothing you did led to this. This was--... No other alpha could have possibly predicted this because _who_ could have predicted that there were still sabers out there? Who could have predicted that sabers still carrying the virus would show up and kidnap Jared? It's _crazy."_

"And yet it happened."

"And that's the only reason that it's not completely insane." She reached out, putting a hand against his arm. "...you get like this. Whenever something bad happens, you assume all the responsibility. Take it all for yourself. It's like all the world's problems are your fault."

"The nature of an alpha," he huffed with a laugh, shaking his head. It was a phrase said all too often about him. He'd been born with the desire to lead their pride, it seemed. Born with the instinct to blame himself.

"And you still don't get how that's not always a good thing."

He lifted his head, turning it to look at her.

"Because I just hurt myself? I heard it before." He shook his head, lifting a hand to bite as his thumb nail. His heart throbbed to think of all the times that Jared told him just such a thing. All the times that Jared had scolded him for pushing himself too far, for blaming himself too much. Jared had been the only person who could ever bully Jensen out of his funks. The only person who'd stood toe to toe with him.

And now Jared was gone.

"Yeah, that," Alona replied, but brushing it off. "But it's not good for _us_ either."

Jensen blinked at that, meeting her eyes with curiosity and maybe some incredulity.

"Wait," he said. "This is a talk to make me not blame myself?"

"When you make everything your fault you're saying that no one else ever has any culpability. You make everyone into your cub and you into our mom. And I'm not saying it's not nice. That it isn't-- You're a safety net for all of us. And there's not a cat here who doesn't appreciate it. But when you say you're the only one to blame, you're also saying that no one else is as grown up as you. No one else is on the same level as you. It's kind of insulting, Jen."

He huffed in disbelief, kind of blown away by the tough love in a time like this, but it wasn't like he couldn't see some of what she was saying.

"Geez, little sister... Don't pull any punches or anything."

She rolled her eyes.

"I love you. You _know_ I love you," she said plainly. "And you know this pride adores you. But _we worry about you too._ You check out when you get like this, Jensen. You check out, and then you take a scorched earth policy on all the other people in your life because you're so at fault for everything that it'd be better if you just pushed us all away. It happened once before and Jared had to make you punch him before you worked your way out of it. And Jared's not _here_ now. So if you gotta punch me, punch me, but this isn't your fault."

All humor left Jensen's face at that: the reminder of his own past mistakes, the reminder of Jared's passionately angry face shouting at him, waking him up, the reminder that Jared was gone. Gone gone gone and might never come back.

"So according to your peerless eighteen year old logic," he snipped in reply, "this is somehow all _your_ fault and I'm denying you and the pride your rights to be blamed?"

 _"No,_ but you're taking the fault away from _them."_ When she said 'them' she thrust her arm out to the side, straight out and pointing across the forest to the north. _"They_ did this, Jen. They fucked with us. They're evil and wrong and they hurt our pride, and when you blame yourself for their actions you make it like you're something like them. You make it like they're somehow not as much to blame and I can't stand that. They did this, Jen. _They did this._ And it wasn't you or our pride or the humans who help us who did any of it. Don't--... Don't _insult_ us by implying we'd take an alpha who'd allow something like this happen. Who would be in some way _responsible_ for something like this. The other alphas weren't wrong about you, Jensen. You're different. But no one here ever thought that that was a _bad_ thing."

Jensen felt a frisson of something run up his spine, locking his joints as he stared out to the hazy and distant horizon. When the visitors had come from all around the world, none of them had been particularly quiet about how _different_ Jensen was, or made any secret of their unease with the Blue Ridge Pride's connection to humanity. Their many houses, the well stocked med kid, the medications and the store bought nets for fishing -- from the glass jars for the moonshine to the bags of salt they brought up for curing meat to the generators that gave them their lights, Jensen's pride was well entwined with humanity.

The relationship between humans and ailure had never been strong -- the humans had never forgotten that the ailure once hunted them, back in the days when man was young and naked and far too easy to catch, all soft skin and no claws to defend with. And the ailure had never forgotten the gun and the fire and the weapons that man made to strike back. And the ailure would _certainly_ not forget Yellowstone.

History was long and fraught with their clashes and there was so much bad blood, so much strife and worry and fear, so much violence and secrets and 'us against them,' but Jensen had never believed that it had to be forever. His mother always said that they were all pride -- that they were all creatures who thought and felt and lived on the earth, and that when the winter came, it was only together that they would weather the storm.

When the winter came...

Jensen pushed himself to his feet suddenly -- suddenly enough that Alona almost toppled back, catching herself on her hands. She was staring up at him in surprise, but questioning as well. The other alphas would have hunted the danger down, would have torn out its throat, and only gotten sick and deranged for their troubles. The other alphas didn't know about disease or medicine or the delicate systems of the body because they still lived and died by the wild, still believed that they could depend on their tooth and their claw for everything when the humans did not.

 _'They had no gifts from the gods,'_ his mother's voice reminded him. _'Only their own two hands, and with them they fought to tame the earth. And today, they rule it as surely as we once did, when we were young and stupid and too easily impressed with ourselves.'_

His hands tightened into fists. He'd been such an idiot. 

He'd waited thirty five years to find a mate. He had no intention of letting him go now.

"Go back to the mainhouse, Alona," he ordered, soft but commanding as he turned away, not wanting to leave her out here in her heat. 

"Jensen!" she protested, scrambling to her feet as he stalked back towards the woods, back towards pride ground. "Where are you going?!"

"Just because I can't help him," the alpha yelled back, "doesn't mean there's not someone else who _can."_


	21. Chapter 21

The night that everything came to a head was dark and cloudless, a new moon above them, closed off and covered by a cloak of shadows, a barely visible orb against the backdrop of the pitch black sky.

Only the stars broke through, silent observers and little else.

Jared was at the height of his heat, troubled and itchy. They’d started walking only a couple of hours ago but already he felt cramped and tired. He just wanted to _lay down,_ to rub himself against the grass and twist and flip and luxuriate in it. He wanted to curl against the bodies of his fellow fertile, lay his head against their backs and rest, not quite awake not quite asleep, with the warmth and security of one another all around him.

He wanted his mate, wanted Jensen’s strong scent rubbed up against him, wanted the feel of Jensen on his back, teeth in his scruff. He wanted to hear the sound of their voices intertwined and discordant, beautiful in how they mismatched. He wanted the firm feel of a heavy body against his own, a dominant, proud and strong and capable of giving him cubs, of giving him healthy young.

He wanted to _not_ be here.

The sabers were walking with him, one to either side and Gedeon up front, and both Dmitri and Varushka would occasionally curl their lips and Jared was more than aware that they were scenting him. There wasn’t anything he could do about it. God knew he’d spent years trying to tame his body, trying to control it during these times, but it had never made any difference. It had taken time and effort, but he’d learned to accept it, to relax and let the heat wash over him in waves while with his pride, comforted with his fertile companions -- but now more than ever he wanted to be able to quell it. To push it away and hide it, to keep his body from putting out the scent that, he could only imagine, said _‘come hither and fuck me.’_

But he’d had enough time and experience to know to blame _them_ not himself.

This was their fault, their doing. Not his. And he’d gotten his first taste of real retribution, of _justice_ for Brutus’s murder, the morning before. Gedeon and the others had chosen to leave Pyotr behind, to let him finish dying from the infection that Brutus had left in him and Jared still felt a firm sense of conviction, retribution, to know that even while dead, Brutus was still protecting him. That even though they’d killed him, the beta had still managed to take one of them down.

Pyotr had been left behind, one of the many dangers surrounding Jared finally gone -- the saber with malevolent madness in his eyes, anger and hunger and violence, and Jared had stood over him victorious. Jared had, for the first time in days, felt the smallest pinch of power, and it burned in him now, a spark but still there. A spark now accompanied by something that felt almost like hope:

He could still shift.

When the sun had risen and the other sabers tucked into the abandoned burrow they’d found, Jared had touched on that part of himself, trepidation and nerves pounding through him at the pace of his heart. He’d felt the worry set up and gnaw at him until the moment that everything flowed as it should have and he found himself looking at furless hands and long arms. He could still shift. And he _knew_ that that didn’t mean anything. It didn’t mean that he was uninfected. He could easily still be carrying the virus. It wasn’t like he had any idea of what the incubation period was or how long it took for people to become symptomatic. Not to mention that just because the virus manifested in one way with dominants didn’t mean it manifested the same way with fertiles -- after all, fertiles _died._

All the same, it was a ray of hope, something to cling to. It wasn’t a reprieve, not by a long-shot, but it was, at least, an extension on the death sentence he’d felt hanging over his head for the last several days. 

If he hadn’t been able to shift, if he’d been trapped in his cat form, it would have let him know, loud and clear, that he was fucked. Completely and utterly fucked. It would have been the moment where he gave up completely.

Even after all of this, even after the last week of pain and misery and loss, even after having seen Brutus laid out like that, even after having to willingly sign himself over to monsters and psychopaths, even after having to say goodbye to Jensen, he hadn’t given up. He thought he had -- for days there, he’d felt the sick, sallow weight in his gut, against his skin, his only joy his ability to still raise his head, to appear unbroken -- he thought he’d been ready to march into the darkness with Gedeon and let it go but...he could still shift.

And he knew that that was nothing. He _knew_ he could still be just as sick as he thought he was before but--

But he couldn’t give it up. Not yet.

All the same, his heat ran teasing fingers under his fur, making his skin goosepimple and shiver, and despite his complete and utter hatred of the sabers, a part of him wanted to butt up against them.

When they stopped for a break, Jared took out his frustrations on a tree trunk, scratching it thoroughly and rubbing up along it. He didn’t really mean to, but he automatically lifted his tail and scent marked the torn up wood -- his body leaving his absent mate a marker, a guide to find him. His body wanted its mate, knew he was missing, and was determined to leave his chosen dominant a trail to find him, even though Jared’s conscious mind knew that Jensen was nowhere nearby. Instead of guiding his mate, it just got the sabers leering over at him, and Jared scowled, pacing back and forth, filled with energy despite the way his paws ached.

 _‘We’re not even half as far as I hoped to be by now,’_ Gedeon said, and Jared could overhear from where he was stalking. He pushed himself down into a pile of leaves, rubbing and rolling around helplessly, until he flopped onto his side, like a kitten, hot air puffing out of his nostrils as he listened in.

 _‘We got further tonight,’_ Dmitri said with that hopeful tone that Jared had begun to recognize -- always trying to garner favor. Always trying to come off as the supporter. A kiss up. _‘Without Pyotr, we should be able to pick up the pace.’_

 _‘You didn’t even want to leave him behind,’_ Varushka pointed out harshly.

 _‘I just_ meant _that we should think about it. There are only the four of us. Or_ were _in any case.’_

 _‘And you think I didn’t think it over enough?’_ Gedeon asked, and Jared snorted a laugh. The huge dominant glanced over at him, but Jared didn’t say anything.

 _‘Of course not, Geds,’_ Dmitri responded quickly. _‘He would have slowed us down too much, I get that. Besides, he would have died either way.’_

 _‘You’re all going to die,’_ Jared chimed in, too cheerfully. He saw them all turn to look at him. _‘Every one of you. Just like that bastard.’_

 _‘Oh, and you plan to kill us, little fertile?’_ Gedeon asked snidely. _‘I’d like to see you try.’_

Jared huffed dismissively, too tired and too gone to care any more about stepping lightly. He was tired of living in fear. He rolled through the leaves again, rubbing his cheek against the ground, feeling wanton and free, like he was floating. He knew it was mostly hormones, but that didn’t seem to matter so much. It was hard to deny the heat, when it was this strong, this potent in his veins. 

It was hard to deny the over confidence that came the night after one of his captors had been left to die. After Brutus had claimed his last kill. If one of them could die, so could the others, and Jared reveled in that.

 _‘Gods,’_ Dmitri muttered. _‘He stinks with heat.’_

 _‘You’ll just have to restrain yourself,’_ Gedeon rounded on him.

 _‘That’s not the point,’_ Varushka chimed in. Jared glanced up, eyes narrowing with suspicion. _‘It’s inconvenient, but it’s not like we had a choice. We heard about him when we heard about him, on the talkie thing in that human’s car -- we came as soon as we could, but we just happened to pick him up during his heat.’_

 _‘What_ is _your point, then?’_ Gedeon asked, sounding tired of talking.

_‘My point is that he’s at his peak now--’_

_‘You know I’m_ here _right?’_ Jared asked. _‘You could_ not _talk about me like I’m in another room.’_

 _‘Which means his heat is going to fade long before we get to safety.'_ The female dominant got up, moving closer to Gedeon, dipping her head. _‘Remember what Father said? Once in the fall, once in the spring. If we wait now, he won’t come back into heat until after the winter passes.’_

Gedeon glanced to the side, over at Jared, and Jared wrinkled his nose, contrary and not liking where the conversation was going at all.

 _‘This may be our last chance to get him with cubs for over a season -- do we really want to miss the opportunity?’_ she finished, and tipped her head to the side slightly, like they were weighing options.

 _‘It’ll take us weeks to reach safety...’_ Gedeon murmured, and Jared’s claws flexed. _‘I would have preferred to wait, but you’re right. After tonight his heat will fade and we’ll be left waiting around.’_

 _‘Don’t you_ dare--’ Jared hissed, tensing.

 _‘We’ll get there before he gives birth, in any case,’_ the largest dominant announced, far too casually as he got to his feet, long tail shifting through the air. Dmitri bounded forward as well, making Jared jump at the sudden movement, beginning to back himself up slowly.

 _‘You can’t,’_ he said, even when he knew it wasn’t true. Even when he knew this was exactly why they’d taken him in the first place. It had all been an abstract idea. A horrifying abstract idea, but just that all the same. Except for Gedeon biting his neck that one time, none of them had made any actual attempts, and Jared had thought he’d grasped the concept before, thought he’d _gotten_ it, but it was nothing like this. Nothing like looking it in the face.

 _‘It’s why you were put here,’_ Gedeon replied as he walked up to stand in front of him. Jared’s nose wrinkled.

 _‘You’re so fucked in the head you can’t even see it, can you?’_ Jared growled, unwilling to shut up now, unwilling to go quietly. He felt the fight in him, the spark that had been lit when he’d stared Pyotr down and realized these assholes could die. Seen with his own eyes that they were so much weaker than they wanted to believe. ‘ _You. Can’t._ Have _me.’_

**{** _‘No one can claim your body but you. No one can take it from you.’_ **}**

The memory of words spoken to him by his pride came back, Jeff calm and certain that Jared’s body was Jared’s alone, even heavy with Jensen’s cubs. No one had the right to take that away from him.

 _‘Don’t you dare order me around, fertile,’_ Gedeon growled in response, looking down at him. _‘I have waited for you all my life, waited for season upon season to find you again--’_

The ‘again’ caught Jared’s attention, made his brow furrow and confusion run through him, but he didn’t have a chance to ask before Gedeon continued on.

 _‘--and the gods gave you to me. You_ belong _to me. I told you before -- we are one. Mates. We were always meant to be together and that I found you during your cycle is only another sign.’_ He lowered his head, looking Jared right in the eyes. _‘Together we will bring our people back from the brink. Together we will bring retribution.’_

 _‘I’ll kill you myself before I let you mount me,’_ Jared hissed in response, staring into those white clouded eyes. _‘I will_ never _belong to you. Or to anyone else.’_

For a moment they just stared at each other, into each other, neither one willing to give. Jared could see the same determination, the same kind of fire in Gedeon -- fire to match his own, and perhaps, in another life, in another time, they would have found companionship. Perhaps, before the humans intervened and destroyed their people, fate would have had a different story for them, and Jared thought he could see it then, in the reflection of Gedeon’s eyes. But this was not that time and not that world.

And Jared had been worn down to the very last bare inch of himself. The final straw that wouldn’t break. The final line that he would never allow to be crossed.

He would never be Gedeon’s, no matter how the dominant raged and stormed.

And perhaps Gedeon saw that, because the dominant’s expression shifted to one of confusion, then surprise, like he’d expected to Jared to finally give in, roll over and accept defeat. Like he really, _truly_ believed that the gods had given Jared to him and that meant that the conclusion was foregone. And the surprise came in the wake of thinking, for the first time, for the first time in his _life,_ that perhaps that wouldn’t be the case. That there was a will that exceeded his own.

But the moment passed and Dmitri stepped forward, breaking it with his overeager voice.

 _‘Can I, Geds?’_ the other saber asked and Gedeon rounded on him, surprise vanishing into anger, overtaken by it again, consumed as he always was. Jared had never seen it as anything but terrifying before, but now he almost pitied him: no matter what, Gedeon would always be ruled, always be a slave to his baser instincts.

‘I _am alpha,’_ the large saber claimed, quick and sharp, then backed off, head turning back to look Jared over. _‘I shall be first.’_

And that was really all Jared needed to hear -- bad enough what Gedeon had in mind for him, but the idea that they’d all take a turn was like a hair-trigger, a wire coiled too tight in him, and pity or not, Jared had no intention of being taken quietly. He launched himself up from the leaves, only to feel Varushka crash down on top of him, her weight too much for him to throw off and he let out a grunt as he met the forest floor, winded. He scrambled for traction, _felt_ more than heard her chuckles, and he hissed, loud and clear, his instincts telling him that a dominant should know better. Should know when the fertile under them was displeased.

For a second, a heartbeat, just the contact felt good, the sensation of being close to someone, so deep into his heat, to feel a body against his own was like finding water in the desert. 

Except it wasn’t the someone Jared wanted, and that mattered _so much_ more.

He pitched suddenly to the side, throwing Varushka off, sliding swiftly to his feet and hissing again, mouth open and tongue curling. His tail was lashing back and forth, muscles tensed. It was hard to see in the darkness of the wood, but he could just make her out, watching her shake herself as she got her paws under herself again. But Jared should have known better to expect the attack to come from in front of him.

Gedeon’s weight was greater, more powerful than Varushka’s, and Jared couldn’t bear it up, not with how suddenly it came from the side, how thoroughly it sought to press him down. His chest hit the forest floor immediately, winding him and the scent of decaying leaves and dirt filled his nose as he inhaled, clenching his eyes tightly shut. The mass of Gedeon’s body settled over him, over his back and without his commanding them, he felt his hips shift upwards, tail press up, hormones screaming _yes_ when everything else screamed _no._

Jared felt his ruff seized, felt teeth taking him firm and he twisted, hissing. His heart rate picked up, thundering in his chest, ribs feeling too small to contain all the air his lungs needed. Gedeon’s growl rumbled through him, shook his bones, and Jared felt the dirt rub up into his gums, face pressed down, and this was everything he’d been dreading, everything he’d worked so hard not to think about, and he had some stupid impulse to blame himself for that. Like thinking about it would have made any of this easier, any of this better.

There was nothing about this that was beautiful.

It was dirty and ugly and disrespectful, went against everything that Jared had ever believed as a human and everything he’d learned to be from the ailure.

He remembered the river bank and the night that Jensen found him, the two of them calling to one another, Jensen trying to fish for him, Jensen trying to parade for him -- Jensen _vying_ for him, courting him, and Jared had been so demanding, so hard to please. Even with a proud alpha before him, Jared had been very nearly unimpressed.

Jared had deserved an alpha who’d work hard for him, show him his devotion. _Prove_ himself. 

And even his heat, thick and needy as it was, curled up in anger and fury, eyes snapping open even as he could only barely make out the blurry shape over him. How dare he. How _dare_ this mangy, unwanted dominant take his back without permission.

How _dare_ this cur mount him unasked and uninvited.

He could feel Gedeon’s hips shifting behind him, felt him trying to seek entrance, as clumsy and graceless as a fool cub, and the dominant’s weight was distributed awkwardly, his body posture too consumed with the need to mate and not at all with the need to hold himself up. Panic burned up in the face of rage, of absolute indignation at the supposition, at the _gall,_ and it was some deeper instinct, something harder and purer and old as the Earth that made Jared flip, pushed all of his energy into a motion that Gedeon didn’t expect.

Jared only had a second to see surprise flash through the dominant’s milky pale eyes, to see the last light of life there that he would ever see, before Jared’s teeth found Gedeon’s bare throat -- coming from underneath him as the momentum sent their bodies tumbling over one another through the air, weight and gravity suddenly nothing things of little consequence. Nothing compared to the heat and softness of the meat in his jaws, wet now and soaking through the fur, sliding between Jared’s fangs and he pressed down hard, harder, until the flesh could give no more, compressed as it could become, like a sponge squeezed too tight and the blood exploded in his mouth, over his tongue and down his gullet.

And all he felt was righteous fury.

His paws skidded when they met soil, thrown off by the heavy weight hanging from his jaws, dead weight and he knew that without looking, didn’t need to look, to know it all through him. It was only right, after all. It was what nature called for -- what was written into him, as deep as his bones: the only end that ever awaited a dominant who dared to take what wasn’t his to have. 

**{** _’You, sweet Skybreaker, belong to no one.’_ **}**

Only an alpha could hold him down, because it was only an alpha he would allow to do it.

He was growling low in his throat, legs braced and stiff, the sound turning over and over again, lips curled up but fangs still buried in that skin, and Gedeon wasn’t complaining. He wasn’t putting up any protest at all. 

Dmitri and Varushka were both stock still. It hadn’t felt fast to Jared, hadn’t felt like the instant it had been, between Gedeon crawling up on him and his fierce frenzy to end the dominant that had taken such liberty. To Jared it had felt like slow motion, like time had slowed down to center on him only, but it had ended the same either way -- he opened his jaws and Gedeon’s body dropped to the ground like a stone, thumping hard without bouncing, without making even a token effort to brace himself. It lay there, unmoving, and Jared didn’t bother to look down and check. 

No dominant who tried to mount him without his blessing would leave his jaws still living.

His growling intensified, teeth bloody and bared and the blood in his mouth, over his tongue tasted dirty and strange -- infected -- less like copper and more like rust. Jared could feel it soaking in his coat, dripping down his neck.

 _‘You--’_ Dmitri started, taking a step forward.

Jared snarled loudly, body still tense, and his instincts were strong but that didn’t mean he wasn’t facing two dominants, both bigger than him, both stronger, and there was no doubt they’d tear him apart.

Jared just didn’t care.

 _‘I’ll kill you, you little--’_ Varushka started through her shock, but Jared tore through her words.

 _'Then come and kill me,’_ he demanded, spat. _‘I'll take at least one of you with me.'_ He didn't need to look at the sky. He knew the moon was overhead, winking and blind, closed off from him by shadow. He'd taken all the stories the pride had told him as just that. Stories. Mythology. And maybe it was.

All Jared knew was that if he fell tonight, the sun would find him tomorrow, and he would be welcomed into the sky as a warrior. As an honored warrior regna, mate of the alpha, who would sooner die than let his body be defiled.

 _'My children will hear of how I died, and they will honor my name all their lives. Their children, and their children's children will know that I fought to the end, and they will hold their heads high with pride.'_ He didn’t care anymore. He didn’t care about the other saber’s stupid threats, didn’t care about their teeth and their claws. He didn’t care about fear or shame or death. There was more here than just his body, and he understood that now. All he felt was anger, anger and justification. If he died tonight, when he died tonight, it would only be when he’d burned every last inch of himself. When he’d fought and run and resisted. He wouldn’t show them weakness.

It was all he had left, no family, no cubs, no mate. Only himself, and he would die before he gave that up.

He would make Brutus proud. 

In the next instant Jared whirled around, leaves and detritus kicking up, just as he saw Dmitri and Varushka leap for him, just as he heard their screams and the saw the flash of their claws in the darkness. He launched forward, barreling through the forest, legs stretching as far as they could, and he ran. He ran like he’d never run before in all his life.

In all his lifetime of running away, he ran as he never had before, as if everything else had just been training, just been the lead up to this: running for his life with death on his heels and the air burning in his lungs.

If they caught him, there’d be no mercy. He knew that much. If they caught him, they’d give him no reprieve and it didn’t matter that he was the last fertile of their kind. They’d tear him to pieces. And Jared would accept that if he had to, but he sure as _hell_ didn’t intend to make it easy on them.

They crashed through the darkened woods, the landscape of the foothills rising and falling under him, no easy terrain, and the lack of light made it almost impossible to see, even with his sharp eyes. Every few seconds he would see a tree or a branch only a heartbeat away from tearing at his hide or halting him completely, and he had to dodge desperately to the side, claws scrabbling in the dirt, against rock, pushing himself around and continuing, feet flying as fast as he could urge them, his life on the line and every step potentially he last.

He would run forever, if he had to.

But the sun had set only a little while ago, and Jared was no idiot: it was hours until dawn, and they’d catch him long before it came. As fast as he could run, they could run faster. As far as he could run, they could run further, and his death waited in those jaws, waited and hungered, and the sun was his only chance -- if he could run until the sun rose, he would be free.

He was alone, completely, just him the darkness and the death that waited.

And in the depths he reached out.

 _...I don’t know if you’re there,_ he thought to himself, as if the sky could see him, hear him. _If you can even hear me..._

 **{** _’You really don't know anything about yourself, do you?’_ **}**

Misha’s voice echoed in his head, confused and three years ago, looking at him with sympathy. He’d been raised a human, raised believing himself to be that and nothing more. His identity, his sense of self, had been a project nine years in the making, and he still wasn’t certain that he knew the answer. 

All he could do was cling to those memories, the voices of his past, the only guidance he would get in the infinite maw of the dark.

 _And maybe I’m just talking to myself..._ A branch whipped by his head, leaves cracking and snapping under his paws, crashing through the woods with no finesse, no subtlety, nothing but sheer, unbridled desperation, pushing his body to the very limits of its ability. _And even if you’re there, maybe you’re not listening..._

**{** _’A rising sun... The sigil of your people.’_ **}**

_But I have no one else to ask._ His throat felt tight, thick. He didn’t _want_ to die. He felt it at his feet, grabbing at his ankles, and he was ready -- he would let himself fall before the sun rose again if he had to. If it was that or lower his head to these brutes. But he didn’t want to. Stripped of his mate, his children and his home, stripped of everything he thought made him who he was, but at the end there was still _him._ Still his life, and that _meant_ something.

 **{** _’You deserve to learn where you come from. The past of our people, who you are.’_  
‘I know who I am.’  
‘You know what _you are. There's a difference, Jared.’_ **}**

The darkness flew past him in a blur, objects shooting by the periphery of his vision, the lines of trunks and the angry claws of the branches reaching out to snag his coat, leaves scattering in his wake and everything began to come down to a point, the world reducing itself until there was only the path in front of him: only the unending night and the specter of death at his heels.

And he shut his eyes.

**{** _’You are the last. The last of your kind.’_ **}**

_I need your help,_ he pleaded, finally.

**{** _‘You have gone by a thousand names, been called a thousand honors and titles, and through a thousand years you have remained unchanged. But there is no name you could go by that I would not know you. No place you could be or any face you could hide behind that I would not see you for what you truly are.’_ **}**

_I am alone -- I have no one else._ He could still hear the crash of the chase the whirl of the woods rushing by him but he ran on blind, having nothing left but that -- nothing left but hope. A single, last, hope. _I know I’ve never believed in you, know I’ve never spoken to you before._

 **{** _‘They're_ your _gods too, you know.’_ **}**

_But if you’re out there-- If you can hear me...I need you._

**{** _’The Hyl'maithen will return, and it will be through you.’_ **}**

_I don’t know what to do anymore, so I’m just going to keep running._ There was a snarl not far behind him, a call of his demise, the sound echoing and loud even through the noise of the chase, but Jared could barely hear it. The world was nothing now but the pump of air through his lungs, the frantic beat of his heart, and the endless rhythm of his feet against the ground, more momentum than true thought, more impetus than will, and he barreled on blind, any second his last, any step the one that would take him stumbling to his knees.

And still he ran.

**{** _‘Prove to me your great, fabled power. Show me what the meek fertile can do.’_ **}**

_So if you’re out there--_

**{** _‘Pray.’_ **}**

_If you can hear me--_

**{** _‘Pray, little fertile.’_ **}**

_Please-- Bring up the sun._

**{** _’Pray to bring up the sun.’_ **}**

**_Bring up the sun._ **

Jared crashed through the undergrowth as his eyes snapped open again, almost tumbled to his feet as the tree line broke and fell away, giving over to a wide, dark field, kept fully in shadow and seemingly infinite, a void waiting to swallow him up. His paws gripped the earth as he skidded to a stop before the sound of a great roar, something splitting the heavens, and then something sparked and flared up in the sky--

And light flooded the valley.

\-----

Thomas Mitchell joined the National Guard straight out of high school, eighteen years old and no college applications sent out and no where better to go. It had been the best option to him.

His family had a history with the military. His grandfather fought in Korea and his dad had been over in the Gulf War -- it just seemed to make sense. His dad had always said that someone with aim like his shouldn’t waste it and the National Guard sounded better than the Army or the Air Force.

He’d rather be working with disaster relief than shooting people he didn’t know in a country he’d never been to. 

Of course, disaster relief didn’t really need a lot of sharp shooters.

“You sure you know how to work that thing?” Garcia asked over the headphones, voice crackly and half blending with the rush of the air through the copter cabin, the doors on both sides fully open.

“I know how to work it, jack ass,” Thomas replied, moving the rifle over his thigh, long barrel pointing out into the night. “It’s just that it’s a rusted old pile of junk! You’d think the Guard could afford something a little better than this.”

“Tax dollars at work, buddy,” Harris chimed in from the front, always ready and willing to politicize anything, and Thomas rolled his eyes.

“It’s not like there are a lot of missions like this one.”

“No sir, there are not.” Garcia was over on the other side of the cabin, sitting on one of the seats and firmly buckled in. Thomas was sitting on the edge of the floor, feet dangling out over the abyss and the harness he was wearing hooked to a carabiner that kept him bound to the copter’s metal grating. 

“Waste of our time, ’you ask me,” Luis chimed in, quieter and up at the controls, flying their bird through the sky. He’d been in the Guard at least twice as long as any of the rest of them and had less of a tolerance for bullshit. Thomas guessed that flying a copter was pretty much the same no matter what the job was -- all he knew was that for him, even the chance to site down a scope was a pretty exciting prospect.

Getting the chance to hunt down goddamned _werecats_ was even more so. Once in a lifetime.

“Flying all over the damned place, trying to find animals that are “somewhere” in the Blue Ridge? Got a better fuckin’ chance of finding a needle in a haystack,” Luis complained down the mic.

“Briefing said they’d look pretty distinct,” Garcia chimed in.

“Nothing looks distinct at night, Rafe.” Thomas glanced back at his friend. They’d ended up joining the same year, but Rafael was a year younger than him, and Thomas couldn’t help but think of him like the kid under his wing. 

“Mitchell has a point,” Harris, their CO, said, and Thomas was about to jump in, to insist that he _hadn’t_ had a point, not wanting to head back, but the older man continued. “What’s the fuel looking like?”

“Middling,” Luis said, and Thomas felt the bird drift through the sky, turning vaguely back towards the east. “Could go another hour or so.”

Thomas could hear from the tone of his voice, though, that he’d rather not.

“We’re not getting anywhere.” Harris didn’t sound as grumpy -- more matter of fact -- and they _had_ been flying around for awhile now, at least a few hours, without even a hint of anything. What he heard of the radio chatter from the other helicopters wasn’t positive either, but still. This was the most exciting thing that had happened to him since he’d signed up. He didn’t really want to just turn around and go home now.

“We’ll head back to base, see if there’s any news there. If they really want to send us out again, we can refuel.” There was a pause as Harris grabbed some of the radio equipment, shifting around in the front. His tone changed from authoritative to more casual, going from CO to fellow grunt as easy as that. “The Guard isn’t here to do the governor _personal favors_ anyways. We’re on the tax payer’s dime right now -- doesn’t seem right to have them footing the bill for _his_ favor.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Thomas replied, good natured as he leaned back against the seat, casting a quick look over at Garcia. They were used to Harris’s rants by now. It was a shame they hadn’t gotten to see anything, but orders were orders, and it wasn’t like Thomas had honestly expected for them to be the ones to find the animals. Still, he’d been pretty jazzed sitting in the briefing room, getting to look at images of what they were hunting for -- not those blurry, far away nature shots either, but up close and clear pictures. Or as clear as a Polaroid could get. He knew it was unlikely, but he and Garcia had looked at each other across the rows of chairs with stupid ass grins on their faces and Thomas couldn’t help it. He’d imagined getting to see the suckers up close and personal.

Suddenly, the copter banked to left, turning west again, and further away from the base.

“Hey!” Thomas exclaimed automatically, hand snatching out to grab the railing at the doors, holding on. He was strapped in, impossible for him to fall out, but that didn’t stop his stomach from swooping anyways -- no one had given it the memo. “The hell, Luis!” he yelled over the mic.

The copter just continued to bank though, turning west and barreling its way over the Blue Ridge, cutting through the cloudless sky like fish through the waves, smooth as you please.

“Didn’t you hear me, pilot?” Harris demanded, that commanding note in his voice again, but Luis didn’t respond -- intent, it seemed, on whatever it was that had gotten his attention.

“Luis?” Thomas asked again, this time with his brow furrowed, but a second later Garcia was up along his side, pointing out the cabin door. 

“Holy shit!” he exclaimed and Thomas scrambled to right himself, turning out towards the dark to see _something_ moving through the woods, but he couldn’t make out more than that.

“Hit the lights!” he yelled, lifting the gun to aim it, slotting his eye to the scope. He heard Garcia moving around beside him and the squeal of metal that badly needed oiling, before the flood light flicked on, and everything was illuminated. 

In the forest below them, Thomas could very clearly see the biggest goddamned cat he’d ever seen in his whole life. It was staring up at them, not like an animal, but like a man, and that sent a shiver up Thomas’s spine. It was long and lean with a greyish coat and black stripes, standing stock still in the grass, the brush waving back and forth with the force of the wind made by the helicopter’s blades. Thomas felt his breath still when he saw there was a necklace hanging around its neck -- a _necklace,_ like it was just headed out to a party or something.

“Take the shot!” he heard his CO yelling, and it kicked him into gear, shutting one eye and sighting down the scope. Even with the bobbing of the copter, he still knew he could make it, and after a brief pause to position the barrel, he pulled the trigger, the tranq dart flying straight down into the creature’s shoulder and sticking -- the feathered end bobbing around as the animal stumbled. Thomas only had a brief second to celebrate, to let out a whoop or victory, before another, impossibly _bigger_ cat was leaping out of the woods, paws in the air and mouth open. 

“Shit shit!” he heard Garcia yell, but Thomas just lifted his rifle and fired twice -- the tranqs had enough juice to keep an elephant down, but he wasn’t going to take any chances, not with something of that size. Not with something that looked that enraged.

The cat flew through the air, thrown off by the hits, and it landed badly, stumbling around a bit, and Thomas was reloading, just in case, when the third one emerged.

It was but by the grace of god that he managed to get the damned thing at all.

The copter hovered in the air for a few minutes, Thomas just breathing steadily to calm the rapid beat of his heart. Below them, on the forest floor, three huge cats were still and motionless, laying in the grass.

“...think it’s safe to go down?” Garcia asked finally, after several minutes of silence had passed, and Thomas couldn’t help bursting out laughing at that.

“Christ, Rafe,” he muttered as he shook his head.

“What!”

“Think that’s all of them?” Thomas asked, looking to the front, trying to discern his CO’s face through the helmet.

“Don’t see anymore... Take us down,” he ordered, and Thomas thought he heard Luis mutter something through the mic. It took them a couple of minutes to descend, landing softly in the open area. Thomas immediately unhooked himself, jumping down on to the ground, head ducked. He left his rifle back on the cabin floor -- it was no good in close range, and their orders had been non-lethal, but he pulled out his pistol anyway.

He wasn’t about to go near the damned things without a gun.

They inspected the bodies after Harris had radioed back to base, telling them that back up was on the way, and good thing too. The minute Thomas got close enough to get a look at them it was clear that it was going to take more than one bird to carry them back. The first one was pretty big, but manageable -- the other two were the size of damned horses.

They’d take more than four men to carry.

And they didn’t even have that, it turned out, Luis standing back by the copter with a spooked look on his face.

“Aw, c’mon man,” Garcia cajoled. “They’re out cold. When else are you gonna be able to say you were this close to a werecat?”

“Don’t like cats,” the pilot muttered.

“Pussy,” Thomas returned automatically and he and Garcia guffawed for a bit over his ingenious little pun.

“Alright, alright,” Harris said as he came around from talking on the radio, muffling their laughter. “Enough guys. News is that the others will be here in five to ten, so we’d best settle in and wait. Mitchell -- you sure those tranqs will hold? I don’t want one of those things suddenly waking up when we’re fifty feet in the air.”

“Should do, sir,” Thomas replied as he crouched down next to the smaller one. He reached out, touching the necklace around its neck. He picked it up, inspecting it. It was intricate, carefully made, and the pendant looked like it had been machine worked. It was nothing like anything he expected to find on an animal. He knew, of course, that the weres could shift. After all, that’s what made them weres. Still, he’d always envisioned them living like beasts, occasionally taking human shape, sure, but that didn’t make them _actually human._ They lived out in the wild, for chrissake.

The necklace, though, spoke of something quite different.

He dropped it, standing up and rubbing the back of his neck uncomfortably, suddenly feeling like he’d tranqed _people,_ and he stepped back.

“You alright, Tom?” Garcia asked, coming up to him.

“Yeah, fine,” he responded, not really wanting to talk about.

“Good story to tell the kids?”

Thomas chuckled and shook his head.

 _“Hell_ of a story to tell the kids,” he muttered, the sound of helicopter blades rumbling in the distance. It sure as hell wasn’t a night he was going to forget soon.


	22. Chapter 22

Consciousness was like a fish, slippery and wet, wriggling through the tips of Jared’s fingers and always just out of his grasp. He felt it brush by him, flicker against the backs of his eyelids, once or twice, but always away again before he could right himself.

It was disorienting, like being so deep underwater that he couldn’t find up again, flailing around and searching for a surface that seemed impossibly far away, and he sunk back into darkness.

He didn’t dream, didn’t see a single thing except for the occasional flash of light and sound, and so when he finally did wake up he had no idea how much time had passed, and couldn’t even remember the last thing before he’d blacked out. All he knew was that the world was white and bright and as he blinked blearily, it reluctantly came into focus. He was breathing slowly, in and out, his sinuses dry and the air tasted bland and re-circulated, as if he was on an airplane, and he could hear a faint, rhythmic beeping, somewhere off to his left. He swallowed dryly, tongue like sandpaper in his mouth, and came around slowly, feeling groggy and out of it. He winced, eyes blinking hard as his brow furrowed and he started to sit up.

The world spun for a minute, a weird thumping sound coming through distantly, but before he could try to find the source consciousness decided to catch up with him, like running into a brick wall and _holy shit,_ where was he? What had happened? Gedeon-- 

His head jerked up, looking around and his heart rate picked up, the beeping increasing as well, when he saw nothing but white walls and a white bed and a machine with a clip on his finger and _where the hell was he?_

He shot off the bed, stumbling into a corner, legs barely working to support his weight, the beeping turning into a long whine as the clip was yanked off of his finger by his motion, and Jared scrambled backwards until his back met wall, collided with it. He was breathing hard, gulping lungfuls of air as his hands clapped back against the solid surface -- hands. He was human. He was in his human shape and he looked down at himself, patting over his chest as he saw himself whole, unharmed, and wearing what appeared to be green scrubs. 

But no necklace.

His heart skipped a beat before panic hit him and his hands were grabbing at the scrubs, pulling them out to check under them, then over them again, like it was hiding, like he’d just missed it, because it _had_ to be there. It had to. It had been with him through everything, his single rock to cling to and now he was in some strange place, he didn’t know where, in strange clothes and who knew what was going to happen to him -- he needed it. He needed to be able to clasp it in his hands and _remember_ that he’d had a home, that he’d had a family, that there were still people out there, somewhere, that cared for him. 

He needed it. He _needed_ it, and for a moment, he couldn’t breathe through the pain, the loss of the necklace, _his_ necklace, his gift from Jensen, made so carefully by his mate, the symbol of their faith and fidelity--

He grit his teeth, head hung, fist striking back against the wall before he brought it to cover his eyes.

And through the roaring in his head, the cotton wool feeling, he began to hear that distant thumping again, muffled, as if in another room. 

He sniffed and raised his head, looking around cautiously, because what now? After everything he’d been through, he just wanted a _reprieve,_ just wanted one small moment to himself to mourn the loss of the last thing he had, the last thing that was _his_ \--

And then his eyes lit on the further wall, facing the foot of the bed he’d been in. There was a huge window there, not looking outside, but rather, looking into a blank, non-descript hallway, painted the same shadeless white. The sill of the window was metal and thick, drilled and set deep into the wall, like some kind of prison, but before despair at his trapped situation could set in, Jared finally saw what was making that thumping sound.

Jensen.

_Jensen._

“Jensen,” he croaked, staring forward, like it couldn’t be real, and the look in his mate’s eyes was much the same, spoke the same words. The alpha looked wrecked, hair a mess and dark smudges under his eyes, skin washed pale and grey under the florescent lighting. He had one hand pressed desperately to the glass, like he could push through it, and the other was raised above his head, fist thumping against the surface--

And gripped in that fist was Jared’s necklace.

Jared choked and laughed at the same time, shaking his head, disbelief warring violently with relief that refused to break in him, relief that was shy and reticent to come after so many days, after coming down to the point, the edge, and facing his own death without flinching.

He pushed himself unsteadily to his feet, taking one lumbering step before pausing, seeing another person come up to the window, someone he didn’t know -- a human, it looked like, in a lab coat. Jensen turned to look at the stranger, talking to him, the alpha’s mouth moving quickly but Jared couldn’t hear a word. The human was replying, then moved over to the side of the window, pressing against what had to be buttons, and the long buzzing of the heart monitor turned off.

Jared glanced between them, confused, and watched the human motion Jensen over, speaking to him again, and Jensen nodding along fervently. When the human moved back, Jensen stepped up to the window and pressed his hand to the wall and for the first time Jared noticed the speaker set into the wall.

“Jared?” his mate’s voice came through, electronic and just slightly distorted but still _Jensen_ and Jared stumbled over to the window, hand coming up against it, pressing to the thick pane. Up close he could see that it wasn’t glass at all but plastic, the thick kind they used at banks, and there was about six inches of space between the pane on Jared’s side and the one on Jensen’s -- quarantine.

Jared’s stomach dropped out.

“Jensen...” he murmured and he saw his mate shake his head, pointing to the intercom and Jared nodded weakly. His right hand moved over to the button, left staying against the pane, as if it being there formed some kind of connection.

“Jensen, god,” he croaked when his finger fumbled over the button, and he _heard_ his mate’s thick breath as his eyes shut, watching as Jensen broke, eyes red and wet, and his head hung for a moment. “I can’t believe--” 

“Thank god,” the alpha muttered, lifting his head again, looking at him through the separation. Their hands hovered over each other, kept apart by the thick plastic and the space between, but it was as close as they could get. “God, you-- I thought--”

“I’m--...I’m sick, aren’t I?” Jared finally gathered the courage to ask, feeling it heavy in his heart, a weight that told him that he’d fought, he’d fought for his life and killed -- that he’d won, only to lose anyways. That it had all been for _nothing._ The disappointment tasted bitter and crisp at the back of his throat, stung like a wound, but when he looked up he saw his mate smiling at him, shaking his head, and there was no reason that Jensen would be _smiling_ over this. Jared’s brow furrowed.

“No,” Jensen said through the intercom. “No, you’re-- They tested the others. They had the virus, but they survived the contagion period. Dominants...dominants survive the disease. The humans said that it looks like the virus dies out, like...a cold, like the measles. But the effects are permanent.”

“So--” Jared started, too soon to hope, too soon to embrace the idea. “So, they weren’t infected anymore? When they found me?”

“Not as far as the humans can tell. They want to keep you in quarantine for another week, just in case, monitor you...But Jared, they said you’re gonna be okay. That you’re probably fine. And if anything _does_ go wrong, we’re in the best place for it.”

“Where _are_ we?” he asked immediately, needing to know.

“Atlanta,” Jensen responded. “The CDC.”

“The CD--” Jared swallowed. Whatever had happened, however long he’d been asleep, it had been long enough to bring him to _Atlanta,_ to CDC headquarters, and Jensen wasn’t wrong. If anything was wrong with him(and he still wasn’t ready to jump on the _I’m fine_ bandwagon), this was the only place in the world he could think of that might know what to do. How to _save_ him.

Hope felt like a chill over his skin, like someone walking over his grave, and for a second, it was hard to breathe. He struggled with it, tried to inhale and stuttered, jaw clenching and he swallowed around the tense muscles of his throat.

After five days in the woods, five days of loneliness and loss, with the threat of death and violence hanging over him, the threat of being _used_ by creatures who’d taken up his love for his family like a weapon against him-- After all of that, he couldn’t just say _Everything is alright now._ He couldn’t just easily accept the idea that he’d come through to the other side. But he saw the tremulous smile on his mate’s lips and felt like he could begin to believe it. Begin to _hope_ for it.

“...I’m not sick,” he murmured, the words still uncertain, but he had to try them out, had to let them out into the open so that they could become real, become something he could believe in. After five days of thinking he was going to descend into madness and pain, perish as all his people before him had, he needed to test out the idea that he might just be okay.

“You’re not sick,” Jensen repeated, smiling at him, looking just as choked up, and Jared laughed, busted out with it, wet and sudden and shrinking just as quick.

“They--...What _happened?”_ He shook his head in disbelief. “Jensen... How did all of this happen? Where are-- They have the others? You said they tested the others?” His expression tightened, darkened just thinking of them.

Jensen nodded.

“I didn’t know what to do,” the alpha said. “I went home, like you asked me to, but I couldn’t just-- I couldn’t _leave_ you like that. Jared...You’re my _mate._ You’re my--” He shook his head, apparently unable to continue. “So I called the governor.”

“The _governor?”_ Jared squeaked. “You called the-- I didn’t know you knew the governor!”

Jensen smirked a little, still a bit weak with emotion but there.

“Gotta keep _some_ surprises for you...” He breathed in, turning serious again. “I asked him to do me a favor. I’ve met him only a couple of times, but our pride is important to the state. Keeping our relations _good_ is important to the state. And the political fall out from something like the Yellowstone Virus cropping up again... Especially after all the press from you being discovered. He sent the National Guard out looking for you.”

“And they found me? Just like that?” Jared’s brow furrowed. It was hard to buy that in thousands of square miles of wilderness, where he could be _anywhere,_ that they’d just happened to stumble over him -- just happened to stumble over him at _exactly_ the right moment when he needed them.

“Just like that,” though, was the response. “You and two others. After they brought you back, they swept the other and recovered two bodies. I said that was all there were -- That’s all there was, right?”

Jared nodded and Jensen let out a breath of relief.

“And they’re all here?” Jared had to ask.

“Yeah. I’ve seen them. They... What happened?” Jensen’s green eyes were searching his for answers, and Jared hadn’t even begun to deal with that. He was still just coming around, working the tranquilizers(that must have been what it was, what had knocked him out) out of his system. He hadn’t even started on the fact that he’d killed Gedeon. Crushed the other saber’s throat in his jaws and hadn’t regretted it.

Still didn’t regret it, though he half wondered if that was just the shock.

“I’m not-- I’ll tell you. I promise. I’ll tell you everything. Just--" Jared shook his head. It couldn’t be now. Not standing here and just getting back and finding Jensen again. There was too much. He pressed his forehead to the plastic, leaned his weight against it.

“Jared... Are you okay?” Jensen’s voice was soft, more imbued with affection, with worry, than any voice that Jared had heard for days. 

**{** _‘I will_ hobble _you.’_ **}**

**{** _‘You’re mine.’_ **}**

**{** _‘I shall be first.’_ **}**

Jared took in a shuddering breath, half relief and half something else, something rampaging through his system and just needed to work its way down. It felt like it had been an eternity since anyone had said anything kind to him. Since someone had spoken to him and wanted to know how he was. How he was feeling.

He looked up, still pressed to the plastic and looking through the clear surface to see his mate’s face, unwarped but drawn, worry written there clear as day. Jared’s hand moved up and down slowly, as if they could touch.

“I’m okay. I just--” He clenched his jaw for a second, swallowing down the lump of emotion. He was here. He’d survived. He’d gone into the darkness and he’d come out the other side and he’d survived and he’d done it by himself. He’d taken every threat, every harsh word, every moment of fear and pain and survived it and no one had done it for him. He hadn’t been a child needing protection. He’d stood alone and stayed standing and the pride felt dizzying.

He’d stood his ground just like he’d never been able to before, and it hadn’t been for his mate or his pride or even for his children.

He’d _saved_ himself, looked at himself and found himself worth fighting for.

His fist thumped against the plastic before smoothing out again.

“...goddamn it’s good to see you,” he murmured, smiling strained but true, vision watery. Jensen’s lips spread over his teeth in a similar expression, gratitude and love and disbelief all wound together. 

“God, Jared, I can’t even--” Jensen shook his head. “ ‘Good to see you’ doesn’t even _cover_ it.”

“And everyone’s okay?” he asked, suddenly needing to know, the realization that there was more to the world than just the two of them coming sudden and delayed. “The pride? The kids?”

Jensen was already nodding, but Jared didn’t let himself breathe out until he said the words.

“They're fine. Everyone’s fine. Cole, the kids...Oh--” Jensen’s expression shifted, became something tender. “Jared... Tristan shifted. He-- When I got back, after finding you, he went through his first shift. No problems at all -- just like that.”

The words hit Jared like a punch to the gut, too much at once, and his fingers curled against the window. He’d been waiting for Tristan to shift, to get to teach him to use his hands, to do all the things that Jared’s parents had taught him as a kid-- Tristan had shifted. Finally.

And yes, there was grief. There was the pain of knowing he’d missed it.

But that was a small thing, a speck of feeling in a sea of joy and relief, knowledge that everything was okay. That Tristan was safe and alive and doing fine, and that it was over. That Jared was going to go home to his son and his daughters and see them again when he’d given that up for lost.

And in the face of that, the sadness at having not been there was nothing.

“Tristan,” Jared murmured, looking up. “I can’t wait to see him...”

“A week, Jared,” Jensen replied, though he sounded like he wanted to break into the room at that very moment and just carry his fertile out. Jared laughed to himself a little -- if he knew his mate, Jensen probably did. “A week.”

“A week--...S’good. That’s good. After everything, after what happened... I want to be sure. I _need_ to be sure.”

“But I could ask them. See if maybe--”

“No,” Jared replied firmly, shaking his head. “I want to stay in here. I want them to run every test, every... _thing_ they can think of. I want to _know._ I need to. Before I go home. I have to know that it’s okay. That I’m okay.”

“It’s just--” The alpha looked away, glancing to the side.

“I know.” Jared could relate. He’d missed him too, and right now standing on the other side of a wall from his mate seemed like almost too much to ask, but Jared had endured worse over the last five days -- the last five days that had felt more like an eternity than anything else, and it was crazy to think that it had been less than a week. That all of that, that everything he’d been through, had been only a handful of days, in the end. “I do too. But this is good. We’re--...Everything’s good. I’m not sick. I’m okay. I’m here. They found the other sabers and...and we’re going to be alright. No reason for us to mess that all up being over eager, right?”

He tried for a smile, delicate and tremulous.

“...right,” Jensen replied, though he looked less resolved than Jared, like the logic penetrated but was still doing fierce battle with the emotions of the moment. Jared could identify.

“God, I’m just...” Jared laughed, not mirthful but not bitter, more like disbelief, like waking up. “It’s so damned hard to believe I’m here, that this is _real...”_

“You are. It _is.”_ Jensen looked like he was feeling everything Jard was, all the relief and heartbreak and too-much that couldn’t be put into words. He looked as broken down as Jared had ever seen him, but it wasn’t a bad thing. This wasn’t a bad moment. Pale and drawn, tired and bloodshot, Jensen still looked like the best thing Jared had ever seen, a sight his eyes had been aching for, and Jared’s hand longed to reach out, to hold.

His eyes flicked to Jensen’s hand, a mirror to his own, the both of them with one hand on the intercom, the other pressed to the viewing window, like their palms could touch over the distance. The only difference was the beaded necklace handing from Jensen’s fingers.

“My necklace...” Jared murmured, half a statement, half a question.

“They had to take it off,” Jensen explained. “To put you into quarantine, they had to strip you down and get you clean, and it had to be sterilized -- I can’t give it back to you until you get out. I figured...I could hold onto it? Just until you’re given the all clear?”

“Yeah,” Jared responded, relieved to hear that it would be his again, that he could hold it and press his fingers to the familiar silver surface. He’d be coming out of here, in a week’s time, and his mate would be waiting for him, the symbol of their mateship and bond in his hands. “Yeah, that’d be good.”

His eyes slid back to his alpha’s, tears waiting on the edge of Jensen’s eyelids, and Jared softened at the sight.

He was safe. Jensen had saved him. In the end, Jensen had saved him. When Jared had needed it, when he’d been running through the woods, crying out for help, Jensen had been there. Jensen had never given up on him.

The humans were going to watch over him, test him, make sure, make _certain_ that he was healthy, so that he’d never have to fear again the idea of infecting the ones he loved, and when they were certain beyond the shadow of a doubt, he’d be getting out of here. He was going to be okay and his mate was okay, and his children were safe. And his son, his little Tristan, had shifted for the first time.

All by himself and in his own time, and Jared couldn’t have been prouder.

The sense of freedom almost made his knees give out and he didn’t have any more words to say, not right now, not after everything, and he just soaked it in. He just needed a moment to take it all in.

Five days of hell and he’d come out the other side. He’d survived.

It was over.

He looked up and saw his mate there, gazing back at him, green eyes like the forest, like home, looking at him with an expression firm and filled with devotion. Jared’s hand shifted, like their fingers could entwine, and he smiled, just slightly but without guile.

They were separated by two panes of thick plastic and six inches of space, but after being separated by so much more, it seemed like nothing at all.


	23. Chapter 23

Jensen’s relationship with the governor wasn’t exactly buddy-buddy.

They’d met in person all of two times, and both had been pretty formal affairs. When it came to personal relations, Jensen saw the mayor of Bryson commonly, even had had meals at the man’s house -- they worked hard to maintain the symbiotic relationship between the pride and the town, and if a problem arose, Jensen knew the man could be depended on. 

But the mayor couldn’t mobilize on the level that Jensen needed.

All the same, he helped Jensen out, sat with him on the conference call to the governor’s office in Raleigh, and Jensen could do nothing else but hope -- nothing but believe in the words and faith of his mother. That their people needed to move on, to form alliances with the humans instead of hostilities, that when the winter of their times came, when the chips were down, they would find the humans brothers instead of enemies.

And that belief had been vindicated when the governor said he’d mobilize the National Guard.

The next day, though, had been like torture. 

It felt as if the hours dripped by, like molasses, no word, no contact, and Jensen knew better than to waste precious time calling up the governor for updates that would come when there was news to give. But that meant all he could do was stay in Bryson, separated from his pride, his people, wondering where his mate could be, what was happening. Everything that _could_ be done was being done, but that didn’t necessarily guarantee success. There was a lot of wilderness out there and no way to track the renegade group of cats, and Jensen hadn’t been able to give them anything besides ‘they’re moving north’, and a description of the last place they were seen.

That wasn’t a lot to go on, especially in the mountains, where heading in a straight line was almost impossible. The group would be back tracking, would be moving east and west as they made their way around mountains and traipsed through valleys. It was only made worse by the fact that, as far as Jensen had been able to tell, the sabers only traveled under cover of darkness. It meant that the humans wouldn’t be able to search during daylight hours -- the best hours to do so. They’d be flying blind over the forest, trying to search out shadows moving under the trees.

The longer the wait went on, the more Jensen thought about it. The most Jensen thought about it, the more he couldn’t help but despair. It seemed impossible that it would end well.

And then he got the call.

He was staying at the mayor’s, to be ready and waiting should anything happen, and when it did, the mayor was rushing him out to the nearest helicopter pad, and Jensen was being loaded up with the word that three cats had been found and tranqed and taken to Atlanta. The alpha’s heart was in his throat, nervous enough that he almost forgot that he was about to go flying, about to be pulled into the air and transported more miles than he’d ever gone in his life.

He didn’t quite forget it, but it was a more distant thing than the question of whether or not Jared was one of those three cats.

After all, Jensen had seen four rogue sabers, which made the total count five. What had happened to the missing two? And was Jared one of them?

He ended up getting taken to a base and switched to a larger helicopter, his electrician’s training sparking interest at the machine, and any other day he would have been inspecting it. As it was, all he could do was murmur prayers for it to go faster, quicker, to get him to Atlanta as soon as possible.

The message that two other sabers had been found, both dead, came through the radio just as dawn came in, and Jensen could barely breathe.

It felt like all the time he’d been waiting was nothing compared to the next hour, landing in Atlanta and getting taken down to the CDC. He’d never been in another city before, never seen any human city this _big,_ this sweeping, but his eyes were trained straight ahead, walking swiftly as a human in a white coat explained to him the situation, nothing new from what he’d heard. 

Jensen felt like he almost passed out when he saw Jared again, saw him real and laying with the living and not the dead. He and the other two live ones were unconscious, well drugged up and unmoving save for breath. They ended up transporting Jared to quarantine, managing to get him to shift in a brief moment of semi-lucidity and scrubbing him down. Jensen was left waiting, not allowed to see his mate again until several hours later, when Jared was calmly resting behind a thick window and in a raised bed.

Jensen was given back the shifting necklace he’d made for Jared three years ago, and he clutched it, waiting for his saber, his precious fertile to wake up, tense and hand pressed to the window, looking in but unable to touch.

He didn’t know just how unattached he felt, how divorced from reality, until he saw Jared sit up, and saw his mate’s hazel eyes again.

\-----

The first hour was little more than babbling at each other, words flying back and forth and exchanging very little except love and relief, but they had time, and Jensen intended to use it.

Misha was in charge, back on pride ground, and Jensen didn’t need to worry about them right now.

All of his attention was focused on Jared.

Jared, who was slightly thinner and looked worn, scratches and small wounds on his skin but nothing major that Jensen could see. His hands and feet looked badly bruised and littered with cracks and cuts, but the humans would come in and change the bandages on them regularly. They said they’d be healed in a few days.

But it wasn’t the physical wounds that scared Jensen, now.

It was everything else.

Jared had been with those monsters for five days, and Jensen didn’t even know how to begin to ask what had happened. It seemed like too much, and part of him didn’t even want to know. Whatever it was, it couldn’t have been good, and somehow the lack of marks on his mate’s body only made him more worried, more scared to know the truth.

At least here, with the humans, they had access to medicine. If something had happened while Jared was in heat, he would at least be able to terminate whatever pregnancy may have started, and Jensen hated the idea of Jared having to go through any of this at all, but at least he wouldn’t be forced to bear cubs he didn’t want.

But Jensen had no idea how to bring it up.

Two days into Jared’s isolation, he finally managed to fumblingly ask, mincing words and going this way and that and never quite saying it, instead just dancing around, but Jared just shook his head.

“No,” he said, short and simple. He’d pulled the bed over to the window so that he could rest on it, the switch on the intercom flipped so that they could talk through the plastic. “They were more concerned with getting to where they were going than anything else. The plan was always ‘get there first, impregnate the fertile later.’”

He half spat the words, and Jensen couldn’t blame him. The alpha let out a long breath.

“So you’re...okay?” It was a silly question, whether or not Jared had been raped, there was no way that going through all of this, no way that traveling around with the _threat_ of rape hanging over him, could be anything ever like ‘okay.’

“They tried,” the fertile answered, almost too matter of fact, and Jensen stiffened. “Once. They tried. And I--” Jared shook his head. “I would have rather died. I realized I was ready to let them kill me before I’d let them do that.”

“You wouldn’t have _let_ them do anything, Jared,” Jensen reminded, pressing his hand to the window. “Whatever they did, whatever happened, from beginning to end, _they_ were the ones who did wrong. You were never at fault. Not once.”

“I know that,” Jared responded immediately and without falsehood. He was tense, but not overwrought, and it seemed like whatever needed to be dealt with, he’d already dealt with it, all on his own. “I... Poor word choice. What I meant was... I knew I could decide. They hadn’t given me much freedom, but there was _always_ that choice. I couldn’t decide to go home, and I couldn’t decide to get away from them... But I always had the choice between continuing or... _not._ And when it came down to it, I knew what I wanted.”

"God, you--..." Jensen shook his head at that admission. That Jared would have killed himself. He hated to imagine his mate, who he loved so dearly, doing something like that. Pushed to something like that. He was almost tempted to say _'nothing could be worse than losing you. Don't_ ever', but then he thought of his mate, proud and beautiful, taking a knife to his throat to spite their enemies, fire in his eyes, and Jensen felt a dizzying rush of love, honored that this fertile, so strong and unyielding, a fertile as powerful as any warrior, would choose _him,_ take _him_ as a lover and a mate, bear _his_ children.

Jared was a fertile like no other Jensen had ever met, and Jensen felt such fierce love and pride -- there was nothing in the world that would break his fertile's will.

He pressed his hand hard against the plastic, like he could reach through and touch that familiar skin.

“I love you,” he murmured, no decorations or embellishments, merely the plain and simple truth.

“I know,” Jared responded, the smile on his lips simple and lovely, and Jensen wanted to touch it, taste it, and he stroked the clear plastic window, as if he could reach through. Jared glanced away. “There’s more to tell... The whole thing, really, but I--... Can we wait? Just...not here.”

“Of course,” Jensen agreed immediately.

“Not through walls.”

“Of course.”

“Not until we’re home. Until it’s _over.”_

“Jared.” The fertile looked up at him, bright eyes through chestnut bangs, and Jensen smiled, couldn’t help but. “Whenever you’re ready,” was all he said, and his mate, so young and once so lost, quirked his lips up, and didn’t look away.

\-----

Jared was finally released one week and a day after he’d arrived.

The week was what the CDC doctors asked for.

The day was all Jared.

“I have to be sure, Jensen,” he’d said, the look on his face booking no argument. “I have to be _sure.”_

In the end, a day wouldn’t really make a difference to something like that, but Jensen knew that his mate needed it, so he acquiesced. They’d taken blood, run him through CAT scans and MRIs, done every test imaginable under the sun and found no evidence of any infection, not even a cold, but Jared had lived with a death sentence, not only for himself but for his children as well, should he ever come in contact with them again, and Jensen knew that if the same had happened to him, he probably would have refused to ever go home again.

Better that than risk hurting his family in such a horrible way.

So Jensen waited an extra day and Jared was finally let out through the airlock, stepping out into the hallway looking uncertain and not just a little bit distressed. But Jensen could only stand there and stare at him for so long -- eventually, as the seconds ticked by, he found himself striding forward, reaching up to put his hands on Jared’s jaw, his fingers on his cheeks and in his hair, and pulled him down to him. His ridiculously tall and skinny fertile, beautiful in his convictions, and pressed their mouths together.

The kiss was long and wet, and surprisingly shallow for the first minute, just lips against lips, before it deepened, not sexual but instead intense, and Jensen didn’t want to let go. There had been a period, too long, where he’d thought that this was never going to happen again. That as suddenly and unexpectedly as Jared had come into his life he was going to be whisked away again, like some fairy tale creature who’d never existed in the world completely.

The humans, thankfully, were patient enough to leave them be, and eventually, after a few minutes, Jared’s arms came up and his hands came to rest on Jensen’s waist, touching lightly, then slipping around, pressing to his back and cleaving their bodies together. It felt good and Jensen had no intention of letting go. There was a part of him sorely tempted to pull Jared back into the room, back on to his bed, and _make_ this more than just intimacy, bring their bodies together and prove to any who would watch that they were undeniable. 

That they were unbreakable.

But now wasn’t the time and here was not the place and the last thing Jared probably wanted to do was go back in the quarantine room, so Jensen disengaged. He stepped back with a smile that was only a _little_ sheepish, and moved one hand to run fondly through his mate’s hair.

Between them, Jensen lifted his mate’s hand, lowering the necklace into the palm, watching the beads pile up, until he could place the pendant down and curl Jared’s fingers over and around it, clasp it tight. He didn’t say any words this time. The first time he’d given Jared the necklace had been a promise, one he had to make. This time, it was the fulfillment of that promise.

Jared looked down at him, eyes warm, and it was hard not to bask -- and perhaps they did, a little. They _indulged._

But eventually Jared let out a long sigh and raised his head, looking over to the technicians that were trying to politely avert their eyes while still sneaking curious glances at their unusual patients, and firmed his brow. He tucked his necklace into the pocket of his scrubs.

“Take me to them,” he said, and there was no doubt of whom he spoke.

\-----

Dr. Marie Cunningham ended up being the one taking them to see the other sabers, told by her superiors to keep their guests happy. Jensen knew it wasn’t normal for patients to be down here, besides ones being studied -- Dr. Cunningham was a doctor, obviously, but she was one who looked at diseases in labs, under microscopes, not one who regularly dealt with people under her care. It made her both a little flustered and a little clinical, all at once.

“This is the room where we’ve been performing the necropsies on the two corpses found,” she announced, gesturing to a large window, just like the one in Jared’s quarantine room, that looked into a large lab. Distantly Jensen could make out two large ailure bodies on metal grey tables -- there wasn’t a lot of blood, not this long after death, and Jared had certainly seen his fair shared of innards, given their diet, but all the same, Jensen’s hand flew to clasp Jared’s forearm, stopping his forward progress. He looked up at his mate.

“You sure you want to see this?” he asked, but Jared just nodded and walked up to the window, looking in. The two bodies were at the further end of the room, and Jensen could see that skin had been pulled back to inspect the chest cavity, but not much was visible from their angle.

“They were dead when you found them?” Jared asked, not looking away. Dr. Cunningham nodded.

“Yes, the first one was recently deceased, and...” She paused, flipping through her notes. “And the other looked like he’d been dead for almost twenty four hours, when we found him.”

Jared just nodded and Jensen assumed that it all lined up in his head. He wasn’t expecting the next question though.

Jared turned his head, looking over at the human.

“The first one -- the big one. Was he wearing a necklace when you found him? It would have been cloth... Had a small skull hanging from it.”

The doctor looked a little surprised at that and Jensen couldn’t blame her. She looked down, flicking through her medical charts, reading over some lines as she turned over each page, and Jensen glanced at his mate for an answer, but Jared was just staring forward, waiting expectantly.

“Ah,” she said, eyes turning up. “Yes. It looks like one of them was wearing a necklace. The cloth was soaked with blood, so we quarantined it, while running the tests--”

“But you know now, for _sure_ that the blood isn’t infected? There’s no disease?”

“Nothing contagious, no.”

“Then I want it. When you’re done...testing it, I want it.” He paused. “Please.”

“I’ll...have to check with the higher ups, but I don’t see why not. We’ve been informed that we don’t have jurisdiction here -- we’re supposed to consider you two the ones with power of attorney.”

“Thank you,” Jared said, letting out a breath. Jensen was tempted to ask, but now wasn’t the time, and Jared continued before he had a chance anyways. “And the other two?”

“Oh, yes... The other two are just down this hall here...” The doctor turned, leading them down yet another featureless hallway, and now that Jensen had his mate back and his mind wasn’t completely preoccupied, he was beginning to find them claustrophobic. He’d lived his entire live out in the open, under the Eye and in the forest, and the blankness of the walls, the lack of windows to the outside, was beginning to get to him. As grateful as he was for all that the humans had done for them, he was ready to head home.

The doctor stopped in front of two windows, right next to each other, each one looking into a room containing a saber and Jensen took the chance to look at them. He hadn’t seen them other than the night that he, Jeff, Nicki and Aldis had caught up to them, and that had been in the wan light of pre-dawn. He’d had chances to come and see them while Jared was in quarantine, but on the best of days it was hard to separate him from his mate. After all they’d been through, there had been very little that could have tempted him away, especially with the thought of leaving Jared all alone with no one to talk to.

“We’ve kept them isolated -- we did some tests on them while they were unconscious, just to make sure they were clean, but other than that we’ve just been keeping them in the best comfort we can.”

“What will you do with them?” Jared asked.

“That’s up to you two,” she replied, looking a little surprised and Jensen interjected.

“They won’t do anything without the permission of the ailure alphas,” he supplied, Jared turning to look at him. “Relations between our people and humans have never been great, and after Yellowstone...”

Dr. Cunningham was nodding along.

“We would love to do some studies -- we’ve never had such good samples of the virus -- but there’s no way we would do that to sentient creatures without their permission,” the doctor said, glancing between the two of them, and she smiled, looking almost a little bashful. “Obviously we don’t have much access to anthropic felidae. No one does. But all the same, most of the people down here are biologists in one form or another. It’s hard not to be fascinated.”

Jensen smirked a little to himself, well aware of why both he and Jared were getting side long looks -- it was nothing like being in town, surrounded by the voyeuristic eye of the tourist. These were scientists, learners. Those fascinated by knowledge and this was probably the closest they’d been to an ailure in all their life. The ailure didn’t allow much study of themselves and Jensen couldn’t help but think that a shame. 

Jared’s brow was furrowed.

“What kinds of tests do you mean?”

“Blood, mostly,” Dr. Cunningham replied. “Scans and ultrasounds, small tissue biopsies...” The doctor rattled off, looking quite excited at being given free rein to talk about it. “The amount of information we could gather on the virus would be _fascinating_ \--Oh.” She stopped suddenly, obviously not great at interpersonal interaction, and pushed back some of her short hair. “I don’t mean to be insensitive. We do good work down here. Ebola, malaria, AIDS... We look for ways to make people’s lives better. But it’s a little easy to become divorced from the suffering they cause when you’re in a basement looking at a disease through a microscope. But fascinating or not, we still find cures, vaccines and treatments... And maybe if we can study the Yellowstone Virus now, we could be prepared for an outbreak in the future.”

"You didn't study it before?" Jared asked, before Jensen could respond.

"When the outbreak happened, they piled the bodies together and burned them. They were trying to stop a contagion -- trying to stop a potential epidemic, and they weren’t really thinking about collecting data. The few bio samples we managed to get are all nearly fifty years old now. They've decayed badly. This... There's no live virus present in them, but they have the antibodies. They have the _pattern_ still in them, and this is a chance we've never had before."

“And it wouldn’t be-- They wouldn’t be abused, right?” Jared asked, very seriously, and Jensen stepped up beside him, a little worried. He took Jared’s hand in his own.

“We wouldn’t treat them like lab rats, if that’s what you mean. Most of the tests are non-invasive, and the blood and tissue samples would be quite minor,” she assured, a certain eagerness there. She paused. “There’s nothing we can do for them. The scans we did on the two deceased show brain abnormalities. Their bodies developed under the influence of the virus. For these two, it’s a life of captivity, or...”

She let the sentence drift off, the implication hanging, and it wasn’t a surprise, given all they’d seen, all they’d heard. It wasn’t a surprise after Yellowstone, when the dominants had been hunted down rather than let them live a life of violence and madness, rather than let them spread the disease where they would. Down here, the two sabers wouldn’t be able to infect others, and could live safely, but it didn’t seem much of a life to have. It wasn’t as if the CDC was equipped to accommodate live-in ailure.

Jensen sighed and nodded, taking the information in before speaking.

"I'll have to contact the other alphas,” he said. “I can't give you permission for this by myself. I'll contact them and--"

"No,” his mate interrupted.

"Jared?" Jensen’s brow furrowed.

"No,” the fertile said again, firmly. “They're my pride, my people. I am the last." He turned his head, looking over at the doctor. "I give you permission. Do what you have to do, what you need to. When you're finished though, when they've been euthanized... You burn the bodies." He looked through the glass to where Varushka and Dmitri paced. "And leave the bones out in the sun."

Jensen started, but then realized he had no real reply -- Jared was right. He was one of the last sabers, the last of the Hyl’maithen. He had more right than anyone else to decide what happened to the last of his once pride. Jensen just hadn’t expected his mate to claim that place. He also didn’t expect the next part.

“And I’ll stay here with them,” Jared finished, and at that, the alpha reached out for his mate’s wrist.

“Jared--”

The fertile shook his head, looking over at Jensen.

“No. She’s right -- they need to study this. It could help in the future. But I can’t just leave and pretend like this isn’t happening. I need to be here, to watch. And when it’s over, I’ll come home.” He glanced at the doctor. “You can have me flown back, right?”

She nodded.

“Then I’ll stay with you,” Jensen insisted, knowing Jared would be safe here, but disliking the idea of leaving his mate’s side after what had happened -- after five days of worry and despair, but Jared was already shaking his head.

"You need to go back to our people,” he said.

"I don't want to leave you."

"They need you, and I didn't mate with an alpha who would turn his back on his pride,” Jared replied sternly, full of conviction. “You're stronger than that. _We're_ stronger than that, and I'll cuff your head the next time you go to mount me if you show yourself so weak."

Jensen's lips firmed, and then he laughed, blown away and warmed, seeing the change in his fertile’s face, his stance. Strong and tall, standing firm, and Jared was right -- any fertile would rebuff a dominant so easily wounded. It was Jensen’s place to show himself worthy, and he knew he would do whatever he had to, to be worthy of this one ailure. He could see the confusion and misunderstanding in the human’s eyes, not seeing the romance of it, the beauty of a fertile demanding better, but it didn’t matter -- Jensen could see the love in his mate's gaze, the relief to have him back.

"You are the only mate I will ever have. The only fertile who can bear my weight." Jensen looked straight at him, devotion spoken loud and clear as he lifted a hand to Jared’s cheek. The saber reached out to Jensen’s other hand and tangled their fingers, strength and loyalty written over his features. It was everything that Jensen had ever wanted from a mateship, when he was younger. 

He tugged Jared closer, his fertile coming willingly, but of his own volition -- a fertile that Jensen would have to fight to be worthy of, every day, and gladly would. He pulled his mate down to him, pulled their bodies together, fingers still entwined.

Jared didn’t feel broken under his hands.

He felt the one who’d survived.

\-----

Jensen didn’t leave right away. Despite their words and Jared’s stern look, he needed at least one night with his mate.

They ended up bunking in one of empty quarantine rooms, the two of them squeezed onto a bed not intended for two adult men to occupy. Jensen didn’t mind. The feel of Jared’s long, warm body pressed to his was a welcome relief after nearly two weeks without physical touch between them. His mate’s back was curled against his chest, and he tossed an arm around Jared’s middle, breathing in the clear scent of his fertile through all the strong disinfectants used in the place.

They didn’t have sex, and Jensen didn’t expect them to.

It wasn’t the place for that. They didn’t have the privacy of their den, the safety of their four walls and the familiarity of their bed. Here they were strangers, sleeping in a strange bed, in some strange human building that was foreign to them, and Jensen didn’t want that for their first mating back together. Besides, it was hard to gage Jared’s mood, and Jensen couldn’t imagine that after what he’d been through, even if nothing had happened, that he would particularly want someone crawling up on his back.

He could tell Jared was grateful when all they did was hold one another, press their mouths together, gratitude for each other’s company in every motion, every touch. Jared was far from removed, and when they finally settled down, Jensen’s arm across his mate’s stomach, the saber slipped his fingers in between each of Jensen’s, holding on.

They had to separate again, in the morning, but Jensen never got the sense that he was undesired.

“Take care of yourself,” he warned importantly when it came time to say goodbye, standing outside a pair of elevator doors with two escorts waiting for him, his hands held up against Jared’s jaw and brow set. 

“I will,” Jared assured.

“I hate leaving you here...”

“I know.” The fertile softened, lifting hands to cup Jensen’s face in a similar manner. “I know you do, and I hate you having to go... But our pride needs you, and I--... I need to see this through, okay...?”

Jensen pursed his lips, not liking it, but understanding. He knew that if the positions had been switched, if this was the remains of his old pride, he would have to stay as well. And perhaps, he too, would have preferred to be alone. Not to punish himself or to hurt someone else, but because it was something private, something personal.

Mates shared many things, their lives, their families, but they were still their own persons as well, and sometimes it was necessary to keep something for yourself. Jensen could understand that.

All the same, he pulled Jared in for another slow kiss, taking the taste of his fertile with him.

“Take care of yourself -- I have left the number for our sat phone with the office here. Call me, even if everything is fine?” he asked.

“You know I will,” Jared replied, leaning in to nuzzle him, and the contact felt good. When they drew back, Jensen was reticent to part, but there was only so long they could stand there staring at each other, Jensen’s escorts back to the helicopter pad waiting.

When he turned to go, though, Jared’s fingers snagged him and he stopped, looking back at his mate with a curious expression.

“What is it?” he asked, brow knitting.

“Uh,” Jared started, and his eyes flicked to the side. “It’s just--... I was wondering, what time did they find me?"

"What do you mean?" Jensen shook his head, not understanding.

"Was it daytime? In the woods. When they tranqed me and the others. Was it daytime?”

"No,” Jensen replied, still confused, and he shook his head in the negative. “It was late. Around midnight, I heard."

"Oh... Oh." For some reason, Jared looked vaguely disappointed, and for the life of him, Jensen couldn’t figure out why that would be. He pushed for more of an explanation.

"Why?"

"Nothing."

"Jared, what is it?"

"It's just...I could have sworn-- How did they find me, if it was dark out?" The fertile rubbed the back of his neck.

"Spot light on the helicopter. Jared, what's going on?" Jensen took a step back towards his mate, resting a hand on his forearm, concerned now.

"Spot light..." Jared laughed nervously, but his expression didn’t seem stressed. In fact, he rolled his eyes, as if he’d been thinking something ridiculous. "Of course."

"What is it?"

"It's nothing, I swear. Jensen, it's nothing. I just thought-- For moment--... It's silly. Nevermind."

“ _Jared,”_ he stressed.

“It’s _nothing.”_ Jared leaned in and pecked his lips in a distracting manner. “Really. It was just confusing, getting knocked out like that. I guess my memories got a little scrambled. I’m fine though -- now _go home._ Take care of our pride.” He softened. “And give our kids a hug from me. Tell them I miss them _so much_ and I’ll be home as soon as I can.”

“Alright,” Jensen said, voice still wary but willing to let it go. He pressed his hand to Jared’s chest, feeling the thump of his heartbeat, feeling the rasp of his breath, and Jensen soaked it in, needing to remember it. “Take care of yourself, okay?”

“You know I will.”

Jensen’s hand fisted in his mate’s clothing, dragging him down one last time, savoring his taste as their mouths met, hungry, quick, and desperate. Somehow, he eventually found the fortitude to let go.

“I’ll see you soon,” he murmured, and it was a promise and a question at the same time.

Jared just smiled at him, the answer in his expression.

“I won’t keep you waiting.”

\------

Captain Richard Baker was shuffling his papers, trying to make some order in the chaos of his desk, when there was a knock on his door. It was nearing the end of the day, and, to be honest, he’d hoped to get out without running into anything else. He sighed. It was always the way of things that the moment you thought you were done, you weren’t.

“Come in?” he said, raising his voice to be heard through the thick wood of his door, seeing it open as a tall, lanky man that he didn’t immediately recognize stepped in. “Yes?” he asked, with a tone that clearly said _This had better be good._

“Sorry, sir,” the man said, no young recruit but a man in his mid thirties at least. “Warrant Officer Charles Luis, sir. You asked to see me?”

Recognition sparked and Baker’s eyebrows went up as his expression opened in greeting. He leaned back in his chair, feeling the springs take his weight, and he motioned to the officer still hovering in the doorway.

“Luis, yes, yes. Sorry -- it’s been one of those days. Please, come in and sit down-- Make sure to shut the door behind you.”

He watched the Warrant Officer step inside the office(a small one, sadly; things were shifting around at the moment, and while his new office was being constructed, he’d been left in this glorified closet), shutting the door behind him before walking over and sitting down in the chair on the opposite side of Baker’s desk.

Baker couldn’t help but notice the man looked vaguely uncomfortable, almost nervous. Then again, most folks called into a superior’s office with no explanation had a similar expression. Baker had been in the service, in one form or another, for nearly thirty years. He was used to it.

“Doing alright there, Luis?” he asked, always liking to start out casual with these kinds of things -- put people at ease. Luis just shifted around in his seat a little.

“Yes. Alright. Yourself, sir?”

“Doing just fine -- getting ready for barbeque season. I get real into those baked bean competitions -- secret recipes and all that. You ever been to a competition?”

“No, sir.”

“Ah, well. Not from the south, are you?”

“Vermont, sir.”

“That’s the problem, right there.” Baker leaned forward in his seat, elbows on his desk as he spoke. “Now, don’t get me wrong, there’s a lot of fine things in the north, but I’ll tell you, the food isn’t one of them. No grits, no slaw, no gravy... And you think sweet and sour chicken counts as barbeque.” He tutted, shaking his head. “Now, you should come to our cook out, later in the month. _That’s_ some real southern cooking, I’ll tell you what.”

“I--...thank you, sir.” He rubbed the side of his arm, eyes flicking around like he just robbed a bank. “Is that--... I mean, you asked me here to talk about barbeque?” He seemed to realize how disrespectful he sounded there, and quickly amended. “Not that there would be a problem with that, of course, sir.”

Baker held up a hand, shaking it back and forth to dismiss Luis’s concerns. He was too old and it was too late in the day for offense, and it was more fun to watch to watch them squirm than it was to come down hard. 

“It’s fine, it’s fine... But you’re right. I didn’t just ask you here to talk about food. Now--” Baker paused, shifting around to ruffle through his papers, missing the days when he was a fit young man, more able to bend over. These days he was getting a bit of a middle, and it got in the way. He straightened out when he had the file in his hands, placing it in the center of his desk and opening it up. 

It was the folder on the rescue mission from the governor: a sanctioned interaction between the weres and humans, and that was always dangerous. As a man in the forces, he was more aware than most how delicate the balance was between the two species, especially in the last fifty years. It meant that things like these required a delicate hand. It also meant that a firm hand to follow up was necessary too.

“I read your report. You were flying one of the copters sent out to search for the weres, correct?” he asked, and he saw Luis nod shallowly, that uneasy look in his eye increasing. “Now... First off, let me congratulate you. By all accounts, if it weren’t for you, we wouldn’t have found them, and that would have been bad for a whole lotta people, the governor the least of all of them. Thanks to you, we’ve kept this quiet, and we’ve done our jobs. And, as I hear it, you saved a life.” He leaned forward though, folding his arms on the desk as he looked intently at the other man, before continuing.

“Now then...having said all that...” He glanced down at the papers, eyes scanning the words. “There are some very _odd_ things in this report and they all seem to have to do with you. And I wanted to talk about that.” His eyes flicked up again, and he saw Luis looking even more nervous than before.

“Yeah, I--...I don’t know. It was an intense night, sir. I think by the time I got back I was just a little...over amped. And needed some rest...” He drifted off, eyes looking anywhere but at Baker, and Baker had had his job long enough to know when to pursue something.

“The report says you were given orders to head back to base,” he said.

“Yes, sir.”

“And yet you didn’t.”

“...yes, sir.”

“Care to tell me why?”

“I...thought I saw something in the woods.”

“From half a mile away? In the dark? With no lights?” Baker shook his head. “Son, the worst thing you can do right now is lie to me. The other men in that copter said you went strangely quiet and banked suddenly towards the west. You didn’t speak again until the bird was on the ground. When I asked Lieutenant Harris, he told me that you looked spooked, but he didn’t include it in his report because you said that you just didn’t like cats. Somehow, I’m thinking it was more than that.”

There was silence then, Luis looking downwards, and Baker had never spoken to the man before, but he’d seen him around, and he’d read his file. He was supposed to be a gregarious, out going type. Quick to crack a joke. This man was nothing like that. Baker continued.

“So I decided to read your medical report from that night, after you got back on the ground...And that’s when things got interesting.” He shifted back, looking down at the open file, flipping a couple pages over before he began to read. “ ‘Warrant Officer Luis was taken to the med office for quarantine and inspection, after close interaction with potentially contagious material. During the decontamination, Luis repeatedly made reference to how there was something in his head. Inspection of the officer showed no foreign objects. Luis insisted that he was being controlled by the cats and eventually had to be sedated.’”

Baker shut the file, moving over to the one that held Luis’s own report.

“And you didn’t give your report until the next morning.” Baker folded his hands together, resting them by his chin. “All it said was that you saw movement and guided the helicopter towards it. But the Chief Warrant Officer on the ground reported that, when you got off the copter, you said that you thought you’d blacked out. So. Now I want to know. What exactly happened that night?”

With that, Baker leaned back in his chair, looking over his desk at the younger officer. For a long minute, the only sound in the office was the ticking of the clock on the wall.

“...I’m not taking anything,” was the first thing that Luis said. “They tested me at the med station.”

“I know,” Baker responded. “Not a thing in your blood or urine. That’s what makes me curious. Tell me -- in your own words. What. Happened.” 

Luis’s jaw clenched, the man looking considerably uncomfortable. One hand was gripping hard the arm it previously had been rubbing, and he seemed tense enough to snap. Finally, though, he opened his mouth, pausing, and then croakingly, uncertainly, beginning to speak.

“...I didn’t black out,” he started. He swallowed hard. “I was in the cockpit, flying as normal, and then...it was like this... _peace_ came over me. Like a divine hand reached down and touched me or something. I heard a voice calling for me. Sum--...Summoning me. I know it sounds crazy. _I_ feel crazy. At the time it just felt...normal. Like everything was as it should be. It felt _good._ And then it was like I couldn’t hear anyone else. I knew exactly where I needed to be.”

“And that just happened to be right over the targets.”

“Yes, sir.” Luis shook his head. “I don’t have any explanation for it, sir, besides sheer, blind luck. By the time we were on the ground, it was gone. Before then, even. The minute that Mitchell shot the first dart. When we got to base, I was freaking out, thinking...thinking crazy things, like aliens or something.” He shook his head, lips flashing a self-deprecating smirk. “I got a little out of control at the med station. But...other than that, I don’t know what to tell you.”

“So you’re saying that God guided you to the target?” Baker asked, and it wouldn’t be the first time he’d heard that. He was a religious man himself, but not powerfully, not after the things he’d seen.

“No,” Luis shook his head, and Baker thought, for a second, that the sun flashed oddly through the blinds, across the man’s eyes. “Not God. It was a voice. I can still hear it in my dreams. It was...calling me. I had to come.”

“A voice?” Baker’s brow furrowed, looking at the Warrant Officer with curiosity and concern. “What did it say?”

Luis ran his tongue over his lips, swallowing dryly. He shifted again, the chair creaking, before he gathered up the courage to answer.

“It said...” He glanced away, then met Captain Baker’s eyes, and Baker would forever remember the look in them, though he would never be able to describe it, even twenty years from then and on his death bed. 

“It said... _Bring up the sun.”_


	24. Chapter 24

Just over two months since he’d gone missing in the middle of the night, taken from his home and family, Jared returned to pride ground.

He stepped out of the dark car that had driven him up the mountain, shod feet stepping out onto familiar rocky soil, the trees all around him and blocking the view -- the wilderness unending, but the spaces within it so strange and intimate. It had been August when he left. Now it was the beginning of November.

Most of the trees had lost their leaves, bare brown branches weaving in amongst the pines of the evergreens, ready for winter. It wasn’t there yet, though it was on the threshold, and it wouldn’t be too much long until the snow came, blanketing their country in white and silence.

Jared loved the winter.

“Anything else I can do?” the human in the car asked, and Jared looked back over his shoulder, shaking his head. 

“No, thank you, Benjamin. And please, pass on my thanks to the mayor -- for everything.” 

The human nodded, putting his hand back on the wheel as he carefully began to reverse, turning the car around in the tight circle of trees. Jared leaned down to pick up his bag, hand scooping around the straps and hefting it over his shoulder. The gravel churned and grumbled under the tires, the sound of the car receding down the mountain and leaving only the twittering of the birds, fluttering about the pale autumn sky and Jared shifted his grip.

It had been awhile.

\-----

The first thing that happened, when he emerged from the trail that led to the garage, was Adrianne spotting him.

He heard her soft intake of breath, saw genuine surprise and fledgling joy flutter over her features, and her fingers came up to touch her lips.

“Jared...” she said, then louder. “Jared!”

And then everyone knew he was there.

She ran up and he had to drop his bag, opening his arms to receive her. She was slim, more so than him, and fit easily, his hands coming up against her back as she seized him, gripping him tightly and holding on. He could hear the murmurs around him, heard others running up, the slap of feet or paws, and he had to stretch one hand out, reaching for whoever was nearest, feeling family crowd in around him.

“Jared!” Misha’s buoyant voice broke through, and the crowd cleared enough for the captain to jog up, grin white and wide across his features, and Jared only barely managed to get Adrianne to detach enough, clinging to his side, to reach out and take his friend in a one armed hug.

“Goddamn, kid,” the captain murmured. “So freaking good to see you.”

“You too, Misha,” Jared replied, laughing. He felt the older man give him a tight squeeze and Jared huffed a little, breath constricted out. “Okay, okay, enough!”

The dominant just laughed again, stepping back. He was staring up at Jared, continuously clapping him on the shoulder, like he could attach him to the ground and keep him there, and Jared could see the emotion shining in Misha’s eyes. The captain had been his first friend, three years ago, and he was still close to the dominant and his mate. It meant a lot to see how much he was missed.

The moment was broken, however, when Jensen pushed his way through the crowd, and Jared could see the desperation in his mate’s eyes. Even Adrianne moved away, letting go just in time for Jensen to seize Jared up, grab him and haul him in, the both of their arms swinging around each other and holding tight, bodies cleaved together and not a breath of air between them. 

They didn’t say anything. Jared could feel the alpha’s shoulders shake a little, like he was holding back tears, and Jared buried his face in against the side of Jensen’s head, and he could smell the mountains on him. The clear, open air that stretched forever, nothing like the scentless air of the CDC or the busy air of the city, breathed in during those afternoons spend out on the roof, taking a break from everything and just watching the deep blue sky.

Jensen smelled like the land Jared was meant to return to, had always been meant to return to, and had taken nineteen years to find.

The sounds around them died down and not because Jared was blocking them out. He could feel the others watching them, a circle formed around them, and their pride looking in, all eyes on them, and Jared didn’t feel embarrassed or uncertain. They were alpha and regna, the center of their pride, and it made sense that their people turned to them.

When Jensen finally drew back, he wasn’t crying, but there were tears in his eyes, and he reached up to touch Jared’s face.

“Thought you’d decided to set up shop down there,” he teased softly, and Jared’s lips quirked.

“Considered it. But, you know, I’ve just sunk so much _time--”_

“Oh, is that it?” Jensen returned, smiling, but their jokes were cut short by sudden and sharp cries in their heads and the scuffle of people moving aside, letting the barreling tornadoes that Jared had given birth to pushed through.

_‘Mom!’_

_‘Mommy!’_

“Hey, _hey...”_ He said, descending immediately to one knee, all pretense and teasing gone, holding open his arms for the children who’d never been parted from him so long. He could hear the distress in their voices, and all four cubs piled in, no fighting this time, all of them putting that aside to instead scramble in, close as they could get, claws scratching at cloth and it shattered Jared’s heart to hear them sobbing. He knew they were happy, overwrought, that it was normal for kids to cry when that happened, but all the same, his arms came around them, holding their squirming bodies against his chest.

“I’m so _sorry_ you guys,” he murmured, around the many voices in his head asking too many questions to answer at once, and too many words to hear. “I’m so sorry I had to go away for so long. I missed you _all the time.”_

Jared had always had a down to earth manner with his kids, teasing them and joking, poking them when they needed poking. Of the two of them, Jared had always been the “tough love” parent, regardless of the fact that Jensen was the dominant and Jared the fertile. When his kids were being brats, he was just going to call it like he saw it, and saw no real reason to coddle them.

But this wasn’t anything like normal. This wasn’t Tristan biting Nathalie’s tail or Joey getting stuck in a tree again. This wasn’t the four of them deciding to break into the salting shack and try the moonshine. This wasn’t anything pedestrian, anything like their everyday life.

This was their mom, who’d been with them almost every day since Tristan had floated down the river to him, who’d nursed and bathed them, looked after and cared for them, let them burrow into his fur -- this was their mom being gone for over two months, with no goodbyes or explanations besides the normal that happened before heat week. They’d had no preparation for this. They’d been given no warning, and Jared leaned down, nuzzling them close and breathing in the familiarity of their scent.

“I missed you guys so much.” He kissed the top of whoever’s head was closest, fingers ruffling fur, and his cubs just settled in his lap, determined to stay there, to stay close. It took them awhile to calm down, to settle. There was a lot of _where did you go?_ s and some heart wrenching _why did you leave us?_ s, and Jared did his best to answer. The truth was too harsh, too graphic for them to deal with, four little three year olds and Jared wanted to protect them just a bit longer -- so he pared down the truth to something very simple, something that was not a lie, but instead a gentling. He’d never lie to his children. After all, he had problems with secrets.

“They’re alright,” Jensen assured, squatting down next to Jared after the cubs had begun to quiet, sprawled all over each other and Jared’s lap. “But I suspect you’re gonna have a hard time getting rid of them for a few days.”

“Well,” Jared said softly, looking down at his kids with love and not having any problem with the idea just at that moment. He glanced up at Jensen though. “They’ll have to deal with staying with Uncle Misha and Aunt Julie tonight.”

Jensen caught up immediately, eyes crinkling as he smiled, and Jared didn’t miss the eager edge to his expression. He lifted a hand from his cubs to reach out for his mate, but Tristan immediately missed the contact.

 _‘Mom?’_ he asked, head jerking up and Jared’s attention refocused. His hand came down to cover his son’s head, scratching idly through the fur, thickening now against the incoming winter chill.

“Hey, Trist,” he replied softly. “Don’t worry. I’m still here. Hey, so...someone told me that you went through your first shift while I was gone? I bet you’ve been practicing, haven’t you?”

 _‘Yeah!’_ Tristan replied, perking up immediately. He scrambled off of his complaining sisters, coming to stand on the rocky ground. _‘Want to see?’_

“Baby,” Jared said genuinely, warmth blooming in his chest. “Nothing would give me more pleasure.”

It didn’t take too long -- longer than it did an adult, Tristan obviously still learning, but two seconds later a young boy was crouching on the ground, his face twisted up in an expression of intense concentration. He blinked a few times, then straightened out, looking down at his hands and flipping them back and forth, as if just to check, then he looked at Jared with a proud grin.

He was fair skinned, like his dad, though he had much darker hair, almost black, like Cosette, and his teal blue eyes persisted, and Jared had a moment just trying to breathe.

Jensen had unbuttoned his shirt, taking it off and pulling it around Tristan’s shoulders, doing up a few buttons to hold it shut, and it was miles too big, but that just made it more adorable. Jared lifted a hand, pressing it to his chest.

“Trist, I am _so proud_ of you, baby. You--... I just wish I’d been there with you.”

Tristan, though, just shrugged. Like it was no big deal.

“It’s okay. Like this I get to show you how good I’ve got,” he said, simple as that, and Jared laughed, watery but glad.

“That’s...that’s true. I never thought of it like that.” He took a steadying breath, reaching out for his bag and dragging it closer. Careful to keep one arm over his girls, still sprawled across his lap, he used his free hand to unzip the bag and dig around in it, until he could feel crinkly plastic and he smiled to himself. 

“So,” he said, as he awkwardly broken into the packaging with just one hand. “Since you shifted... I decided I should get you a treat. I didn’t want to get it before because it can be bad for cats and who knows how we work when it comes to that but--” He stopped his babbling, pulling out a single, silver foil wrapped, Hershey’s Kiss. “But I _loved_ these when I was a kid, and I turned out okay, so...”

“What is it?” Tristan asked, leaning in with a furrowed brow.

Jared carefully adjusted Deb so that she’d still be cuddled up against him and brought his other hand up to unwrap it, putting the foil in his bag and holding the naked Kiss up.

“Chocolate,” he answered proudly, but Tristan just gave it a highly skeptical look.

“...it looks like poop,” he commented simply. Jared snorted in offensive.

“It’s not poop! You think I would try and feed you poop?”

Tristan gave him a look that clearly said _‘Maybe.’_ Jared huffed, but hell, no skin off of his back -- he popped the Kiss in his mouth, chewing it up. He hadn’t much loved the time away from his pride. In fact, he’d missed them sorely. But he _had_ enjoyed being surrounded by human food again, and he’d indulged pretty heavily. His digestive track had complained vigorously, but he had no regrets.

Once Tristan had seen him consume the treat, Jared reached for another, unwrapping it and offering it out again. This time Tristan took it, though he still looked suspicious, like maybe his mom was pulling a fast one(and to be fair to the kid, that was kind of Jared’s MO), but after a moment of consideration, he cautiously put it in his mouth and began to slowly chew.

Jared waited, face expectant, smile warm and eyes searching his son’s newly human face, memorizing the features he had not yet come to know.

And then Tristan’s eyes widened and his eyebrows went up and Jared laughed, knowing that it had hit, and Tristan’s mouth stretched out into a wide, chocolate-y grin.

“...welcome to chocolate, kiddo,” Jared murmured, feeling the tightness of joy in his chest, the pride and love of passing on something he treasured to one of his children. The wonder on Tristan’s face was irreplaceable. 

The cub stepped closer and Jared hauled him in with one arm, feeling, for the first time, the wiry arms of his son come around his neck. He let out a breath, tight and tender, brow furrowed and nostrils flared as he held it back.

This was what he’d been waiting for, for two months.

It was hard to disengage. Even when he got up his kids didn’t want to let him go and he ended up in the mainhouse, sitting with them on the floor and playing around, listening to them energetically talk about what had happened while he was gone -- mostly nonsensical stories that were important to them in some way, and Jared would nod seriously, catching every third word in the hurried rush, watching as Nathalie or Tristan reenacted whatever it was they were talking about.

Debra, though, just stayed curled in Jared’s lap, his hand moving back and forth over her fur.

It was only after they’d settled down some, detached a little, that Jared slowly disengaged, slipping away as they began to play with some of the other cubs. He’d only be gone a short while, after all.

It was just something he had to do.

Jensen was standing nearby, his eyes never having left them the whole afternoon, and Jared walked up, his expression shifting from one of play to something more set, more serious.

“Take me to him,” was all he said, and Jensen nodded.

\-----

The hike to the Pale Gulch seemed longer than usual, as if time were slowing down, or the land was stretching out, like it didn’t want him to reach his destination.

He’d been there before, coming with Jensen and Cosette sometimes on the anniversary of their cubs’ deaths. The first year he felt it was inappropriate and was uncomfortable being there, but since then he’d come to accept that it was his place as family.

And he wanted to be there for Jensen.

It was up a steep incline, a long stretch of forest that had grown up the side of a mountain, and five years ago Jared would have struggled to conquer it -- these days it was just a bit of exercise. The rock was tan and light, pebbles and broken stone everywhere, pushed up by roots that had grown deep, clinging with determination to the side of the ridge, unwilling to let go. Jared could identify.

When they emerged from the forest it was out on to a flat ledge of rock, the top of the small mountain, overlooking the sprawling landscape of the Blue Ridge, the mist hazy in the distance and creating the blurry blue from which the mountains got their name. The trees that covered the ground like carpet were sparser now, less green and dotted with oranges and yellows where they weren’t bare. The cold wind was hard and battering, strong this far up and exposed, and along the ledge, in the center, was the deep gash in the earth that held the bodies of those who’d passed.

Jared clenched his jaw.

At the edge of the gulch was a palette, a raised altar of wood guarded by two betas, and on it a set of bones, white and black, marred from burning, and no flesh left.

It didn’t look like Brutus.

It didn’t look like anyone at all.

There was a crashing behind them, and Jared felt Jensen tense even more than him as they turned to see a large man jogging up the slope, before making out Jeff as he emerged out into the sunlight. He looked out of breath and a little wild eyed, coming to a stop slowly in front of the two of them. He was glancing Jared over, like he would have arrived with obvious injuries.

Then again, Jeff hadn’t seen Jared since that day in the clearing. He hadn’t gotten to see Jared whole and safe, back at the CDC. For him, this was the first time getting to look him over free and clear.

“I’m okay,” Jared said automatically, said first without even being asked.

“They came to the Cove to tell me--” the beta started, reaching out a hand, and Jared let it come to rest on his shoulder, moving to the side of his neck. “You had us damned worried, kid.”

His voice sounded rough, and Jared was touched. He knew, intellectually, that his pride loved him, valued him. It was something else to see it so viscerally. He lifted one hand to clap onto Jeff’s wrist.

“Yeah, I know,” he replied. “I made it through, though.”

“So damned sorry.” Jeff shook his head. “I never should have let you get taken at all. What you had to go through--”

“Jeff,” Jared interrupted sternly.

“I should have _protected_ you. Kept you in the Cove--”

“Jeff.” Jared gripped the beta’s wrist, pulling his hand away from Jared’s neck. “It would have been wrong of you to do so, and you know it. I made my choice. And it wasn’t anyone’s fault what happened but theirs.”

“It’s my place to watch after you,” Jeff protested, and Jared loved the man, he really did. But there was a time and place for that and it wasn’t here, in front of Brutus’s body.

“Don’t make this about you,” Jared commanded, not meanly, but firmly, demanding obedience, and Jeff looked surprised, before his expression shifted to one of understanding. He softened and nodded -- Jared wasn’t his lost little fertile anymore. It didn’t mean that he wouldn’t ever need Jeff again, or need someone to lean on, but he also didn’t need the beta to babysit him, to follow after him and worry all the time.

Jeff might have been the caretaker of the fertile, but Jared was regna, and Jeff dipped his head slightly in deference.

Jared rolled his eyes at the gesture, and tugged on Jeff’s hand, pulling the older man into an embrace, one with a hard clap on the back, man to man, if not dominant to fertile. Jeff managed not to stumble, and held him in return, lingering only briefly.

Jared might not have been the lost little fertile in need of keeping, anymore, but that didn’t mean he didn’t need his friend.

“Thank the gods you’re safe,” Jeff mumbled, a little thickly, and Jared rubbed his friend’s back.

“Don’t thank _them_ for that,” Jared replied, drawing back, and his face was more somber now. He turned to look over his shoulder at the charred bones -- there was someone who was owed that gratitude far more.

Jared glanced over at his mate and Jensen took a step over to him as Jeff withdrew his arms. The alpha put his hand on Jared’s shoulder.

“Are you alright?” he asked, and Jared responded without pause.

“Yes,” he said, and it wasn’t a lie. He was alright. He was going to be alright. But he still needed this. Brutus needed this. Or deserved it, at least.

"He saved you," Jensen said in the pause that lingered, something to fill in the silence. "He died protecting his regna. He never--" His breath hitched. "He never gave in, and if he had, I never would have even known what happened. Because of what he did, you're alive."

But Jared shook his head.

"He did much more than just that." He took a step forward, pausing before walking towards the gulch and feeling Jensen’s hand drop away. Jared didn’t need to ask or even look -- he knew his mate would give him this time alone. Jensen, after all, understood him like no other.

He walked over the flat, dusty ground, a few sprigs of dying grass here and there, but the gulch was always fairly barren, even in summer, and there wasn’t much to it now, a space contained between two jagged edges of the mountain. It was always beautiful out here. Always clearer, somehow, as if the open top allowed the wind to carry through a person, as if the open sky were there for them and them alone.

And the gulch lay bare to it, flooded in the sun’s light.

Jared had taken the bones of the sabers out into the woods, driven in a CDC truck with a driver he didn’t know, the two of them listening to CCR blaring through bad speakers, and the bones of Gedeon, Dmitri, Varushka and Pyotr in the back. Jared could never forgive any of them for what they’d done. He didn’t feel he should. But they were ailure. And he couldn’t bring them home -- couldn’t bring himself to ever have those bones rest in the place where he would one day, where the bones of his children’s ancestors rested, but he could give them an ailure funeral, as best he could.

And perhaps the gods would forgive them.

Jared had left it to fate and laid the bones in an open field, far away and where none would find them. They would rest like they lived -- exposed and in the wild, part of no pride, but, at least, together. It was the most generosity that Jared could find.

He stopped in front of the altar.

The skull was mostly white and smooth, bits of ash still clinging here and there, eye sockets hollow and empty and the line of his jaw extended in a macabre grin. It made Jared think of going to the Museum of Natural Science with his dad, looking at the skeletons of animals on display, running from exhibit to exhibit and jostling with his brothers, hands reaching out over the railings to try and touch.

There was no railing here, and Jared’s hand came to rest against the pale dry stretch of Brutus’s scapula, sun warmed. The betas to either side glanced at him, and then uncertainly moved away, giving him this moment alone.

“...thank you,” he said, finally, when the scuffle of paws had faded and he could only hear the wind. The words seemed bare -- far too little, far too insignificant in the face of everything Brutus had given. Sacrificed. 

_“Thank_ you,” he tried again, words clearer, more emphatic, but still for no one else, for Brutus alone. “I want you to know what you did. What you saved. Without you--” Jared shook his head. “I’m here. I’m back. I’m alive, and that wouldn’t have happened without you. I don’t know if I would have even been able to fight, if it weren’t for you. But...you didn’t just save me. You save Cole. If you hadn’t been there, he would never have escaped, and I could never have managed to protect him alone. You _saved_ him. From death...and from worse.”

Jared leaned down, leaned close -- the bones didn’t smell of death or decay. They smelled like the mountains, like the forest and the hickory scent of the fall. His voice lowered, and he murmured into the bones of his friend.

“Because of you, he’s going to have a life. He’s going to grow up and he’s going to be okay. He’ll get to decide whether or not he wants to take a mate, whether or not he wants to have kids. He’s gonna be able to see his family, his friends, and get drunk on moonshine and laugh about it... And he’ll never remember any more of this than one night of fear -- and that’s because of you. What you did...You gave him your life. You saved him. And you saved me.” Jared shut his eyes for a moment, but tears didn’t come. He’d already cried for Brutus, muffled sobs into his paws and grieved until his heart sang with it. He’d always carry that with him.

He leaned down a little further and pressed his lips to unliving bone, to the remains of what was once his friend, and his hand brushed against the soot.

When he drew back, Brutus hadn’t moved, would never move again, but he hadn’t died for nothing.  
  
He’d given up himself so that someone else could live, and he hadn’t blinked in giving it.

“Thank you,” Jared said again, and he hoped it was enough, though he knew it never could be.

He walked around the altar and to the edge of the gulch, looking down within it to the indistinguishable pile of bones and dirt. The rotting bodies had, over the years, created a well of fertile soil that the bones now laid mixed among. Somewhere in there were Jensen’s kids. Jensen’s mom. Somewhere in there, one day, Jared knew he and his mate would lay, after a long and good life, if he had any say in it. To a human eye, it looked awful. _Cruel._ Like a mass grave. It looked like the most disrespectful thing you could do, something done to your greatest enemy to spit on them even after death.

But to the ailure, to their pride, it was the honor of being bare beneath the sky, exposed to that which they loved more than anything else.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out the two necklaces, their cords intertwined, cloth and leather, bone and metal, and the skull clanked against the pendant, dangling from his fingers. When the wind blew, they cluttered like wind chimes and Jared looked up at the sky. He didn’t see any cats, any gods or demons, nothing looking down at him but the sun. Forty eight years ago his people had been wiped out, and he’d never thought of it as anything but academic, the story of something in a history book, part of his past but not part of him.

They’d lost their home land and come here seeking something better, only to end up in a pile, burned to stop the infection of their flesh from spreading. And now one of them, the last of them, would be laid to rest as their traditions demanded. The only one of them to receive such a thing.

Jared shifted to bring the necklaces up, long fingers tenderly untangling them, strand by strand, until Gedeon’s necklace rested in one hand, separate from the other. He thought of the other dominant, his scarred and tangled face, and the desperation hidden in his eyes. His need to find destiny.

Jared saying goodbye to Brutus had been painful.

Saying goodbye to Gedeon would be considerably harder.

He’d hated the other saber, unabashedly, and he still did. But he’d understood him also, though he wished he hadn’t. Gedeon had called them one -- part of each another and even though Jared didn’t want to see it, he could. Gedeon had been cruel and self-obsessed, a creature built from nothing but need and the lingering hunger of the vengeful dead.

But Jared had seen himself in Gedeon’s eyes, seen that reflection of what was left of their people, and they had been the same, once. Jared had never understood where he came from until he met Gedeon.

He’d never forgive the other saber. But Gedeon would always be a part of him.

He swung his hand out over the gulch, watching the skull of the tiny fertile stillborn swing in the wind, his fist clenched around the torn cloth. The wind whistled through the eye sockets, hollow and mournful, a final farewell.

Jared clenched his jaw and let go, and the last bones of the Hyl’maithen fell into the gulch, clattering over white ribs and femurs, and was lost to his vision. The strong gale pressed against his back, clearing his hair away from his neck, and he turned around, looking back over at his family, his pride, waiting for him.

He’d been born in Yellowstone, twenty two years ago, born a saber, but he was not the last anymore.

He was the first.

He lifted the shifting necklace and laid it over the back of his neck, looping it around a second time and hooking the clasps. It fell into place like it was meant to be there, and covered skin that had longed for it for two months.

He took a deep breath and looked up.

“I’m home,” he declared, and like the words made it true, he felt like it was really over.


	25. Chapter 25

Their den was no different than it had been before, but it still felt strange being in it, as if something had changed, as if his sense of it had altered in the time he was gone.

Jared knew it hadn’t, knew that it was him that had changed, but it was still a little surreal when he lay down on the blankets, the warm heat radiating off of the chimney stones, fighting off the bite of the cold night air and pressing against Jared’s skin slowly reminding him. He rubbed himself against the bedding, his scent there too long faded, and he felt a deeper need to imprint it on the pillows and sheets. His necklace lay against the bare skin of his belly, the pendant a pleasantly familiar weight, but the whole thing still felt a little bit like an out of body experience. He remembered the sensation from coming back from vacation as a kid, coming into his room at his parents house when he was eleven and feeling like he was just two inches to the left from where he’d been, where he fit, and how it took a day or two to adjust, to fit right again in his home.

He opened his eyes from his rubbing and saw his mate standing over by the hatch, looking over at him with tenderly possessive eyes, and Jared smiled.

It wouldn’t take too long at all.

They had spent the rest of the day with their cubs, Jared’s attention a jealously guarded thing, and any moment he’d turned away to say something to anyone else, one or more of his kids had been there, demanding it back. Debra, in particular, just wanted to be held all evening, and Joline would get distracted by playing, only to suddenly remember that her mother was home again, running over to rub up against him like if she didn’t check in, he’d disappear again. 

He hated that his absence had set up such an anxiety in them. It wasn’t hard to understand though. Jared had been a constant in their lives and then he’d suddenly been gone, with no real explanation or goodbye. They were used to heat week, and they’d even dealt well with him being gone for his brother’s wedding -- but with both of those Jared had been able to sit down with them before hand, let them know where he was going and what he was doing, answering all their many varied questions, everything from relevant to wildly irrelevant, until they were settled with the concept. Until they felt safe, and knew their mother was leaving but still coming back.

Jared knew, logically, that that stability would come back. Kids were resilient, could deal with more than people gave them credit for, and their memories of this time would slowly be overshadowed by new ones. In other words: they’d get over it. All the same, the way they’d stepped around him lightly, as if they could scare him off, or checked in on him over and over, like he was going to vanish, had made his heart ache.

He’d originally been intending to just drop them with Julie and Misha before bedtime, but he ended up staying down on the ground level with them until they’d all passed out, their mother’s scent nearby and present, unerring, and he’d be back in the morning, when they woke up. He wanted them all to get back to the status quo as soon as possible.

He didn’t want his kids to ever have to worry about his dependability as a parent. 

He’d given birth at nineteen, but he took that responsibility to heart, even if he didn’t always treat the job with complete seriousness.

“God, you look good there,” Jensen said, catching Jared’s attention again and reminding him that his cubs weren’t the only people who needed his attention. Weren’t the only people needing to verify his presence.

“Playboy good?” Jared asked, lounging out in an exaggerated fashion that Jensen wasn’t going to understand anyway, but Jared sort of liked how oblivious his mate was. He heard the alpha snort, less at the reference and more at Jared’s ridiculous pose, and there was the warm scuffle of bare feet on the wooden floor as Jensen padded over, stripping off his shirt as he went. Jared used to be embarrassed to look, used to be embarrassed to be aroused by the sight, some kind of human hang up about homosexuality there, like looking at Jensen made him gay.

But it wasn’t Jensen’s maleness that had his gut churning now, had his body shifting in nascent arousal. It was the scent of a dominant, proud and eager, and one that had earned Jared’s affection. _Earned_ the right to enter Jared’s bed.

“Missed you so much,” Jensen mumbled, coming to his knees, and his rough hands pressed gently to Jared’s skin, the saber wearing only his loose pants and nothing else. He felt the ridges of his mate’s calluses journey over him, over every flat plane -- Jared considered himself to be reasonably strong, but he wasn’t ripped like Jensen was, and never would be. His fertile nature veered more towards leanness, his body’s energy devoted to something other than fighting and hunting, something different than muscle and power.

And that thought brought another up, something that Jared had been thinking about during his two months away, two months watching the humans go through their tests and their data gathering. Something, honestly, that he’d been thinking about when he’d been dragged across the land by Gedeon, but had put aside as wishful thinking.

It wasn’t just wishful thinking now, though, not with his mate right here, but before he could bring it up, Jensen leaned over and claimed his mouth, and Jared gave up words in preference for something better, his hands coming up to run through his mate’s short cropped hair, feeling it tickle and burn against his palms.

During his two months with humans, without the presence of his pride, the people he belonged with, the mate he belonged with, he’d imagined this as sweet and tender, some slow welcome home, imprinted on him with hands and lips. But now that he was here, feeling the kiss crash from nonexistent to hard and hot, feeling Jensen grabbing at him needfully, he couldn’t imagine it any other way. He pulled on his alpha, twisting and throwing the alpha’s weight off, so that Jensen fell over on to the nest of blankets and pillows with him, the two of them rolling together.

Jensen never made a sound of surprise or tried to pull away, just let them twist and roll, limbs tangling, and Jared gave as good as he got, just as hungry for Jensen as Jensen was for him.

He remembered being shy in their sex, once, being uncertain. His body and what it could do scared him, humiliated him, and the fact that it was so bare, so wanton with its clear desire for Jensen’s dominance had made him like a nervous colt in bed, all arms and legs and turning his head away.

That had worn away over three years, had lessened with each time Jensen reached for him or murmured affections in his ear -- worn away as it had become more and more obvious that Jensen wanted him, unabashedly. No act, no performance, nothing faux and no kind pity about it. His mate _desired_ him, and Jared knew what he had now, the part of him that Jensen was desperate to get to, and Jared controlled that -- controlled Jensen, even if Jensen’s stronger hands manipulated him. 

He could feel those hands grasping now, pushing and pulling at the same time, and Jared felt his pants tugged down and he helped to kick them off, rolling over on to his belly, not enough art in him to try for something more complicated than this. 

Jared still didn't enjoy the idea of sex as cats, and Jensen had never pushed him, but there was still an appeal to the position, to appealing to their natures. They took human form, lived and breathed in it, and Jared would always have a greater affinity for his two legs than his four, but he recognized, at least, at the most base level, that they were cats. They were wild and animal and they loved and thought just as well as they hunted and bred. He had always seen it as one or the other, always fought to _be_ one rather than the other, while Jensen and his people were both. Jared was tired of fighting. 

There was a sensuality in surrender, in feeling Jensen's heavy body over him, the two of them intimately entwined. Jensen paused though, head descending between Jared’s thighs, tongue pressing to his entrance. Jared’s fingers curled in the blankets but he held himself rigid, legs tense as he supported himself, arousal like a snake in his belly, moving and shifting and he let out a cry when Jensen’s tongue caused him to produce fresh slick, already turned on, already ready. Jensen didn’t dally too long. 

Jared’s mate crawled over him, around him, and he shivered when a wet tongue ran over his shoulderblade, the skin of Jensen’s tender belly brushing his back. Jared inhaled, feeling the swell of power in him, knowing that, at this moment, Jensen was his, belonged to him -- not just sexually but physically. Jensen was at his mercy.

Then he felt his body part and he let the breath out, felt it stir the air and the dust in their den, the sensation of another person inside of him, part of him. Jensen’s hand skidded and fell over one of Jared’s and Jared seized it, let Jensen’s fingers fall between his own, palm to back, Jared’s knuckles pressing up into his grasp. They held on tight and his mate’s breath was hot and wet against Jared’s neck.

The pace slowed then, just for a second, came to a stop, Jensen seated within him as deep as he could go and Jared intimately aware of it. He could feel Jensen’s heartbeat against his back, thumping away, quick and intense. He could feel it _inside_ him, the pulse of it running through Jensen’s cock, and Jared arched his back down, pressing into the sensation.

That seemed to be enough of a sign for Jensen, whose temporary still came to an end, pushing forward with nowhere to go, just creating force, motion as he drew back, giving all his body had, and Jared accepting it.

He reached back with his free hand and touched the back of Jensen’s neck, rejoicing in the sensation of being reunited with his mate, as deep and true as he could be, their bodies swaying with the rhythm of their sex, the necklace swinging between his arms. 

It was long and rough and tender all at once, joy and desperation, a reunion and reaffirming all at once, and Jared needed that. And he knew that Jensen needed it too.

When Jensen called to him, Jared replied, full throated and without reservation.

\-----

Jensen didn’t know how much time had passed since they’d ascended to their den, since they’d fell to grabbing and grappling in their sheets -- all he knew was that when he collapsed to their bed, he felt like he’d never get up again.

Jensen felt more than just tired: he felt _dehydrated._

It had started with fucking, hard and needy, but that wasn’t where it ended. No, he’d pulled Jared to two more orgasms, pressing his fingers in deep and watching his mate writhe, before he’d gathered the energy to go again, this time with Jared on his back. They’d had the luxury of going slower that time, languorous and sweet, and he’d more than once dipped down to enjoy his mate’s mouth. It felt like it had taken him hours to reach his peak -- he was sure that was an exaggeration, but he couldn’t for the life of him tell by how much.

He was panting still, laying on their covers, and Jared was smiling at him, beautiful and fucked out, and Jensen turned his head to look at him full on.

“...you okay?” he asked automatically. He’d been nervous about the two of them doing anything together when Jared got back. During his mate’s long absence, Jensen had imagined nightmares of Jared in danger, Jared under threat, and worse during his waking hours. Even though he knew that his mate had never been violated, he couldn’t imagine that living under that threat was any bit better. 

If Jared had wanted time, wanted space, Jensen would give it, gladly. However much he needed.

Jared made a pleasant little sound, something like a mewl, and leaned in for a kiss, slow and wet -- it turned out, Jared hadn’t needed space.

“I’m fine,” the saber replied, when he pulled back, just enough to look at Jensen, smoothing a hand across the side of his face.

“Are you sure?” the alpha asked again, knowing he was being obsessive, being alpha-y, as Jared would call it, but he was worried. His mate’s health and comfort were paramount.

“I’m _fine,”_ the saber stressed, but his voice was affectionate. He scooted up, laying half over Jensen, chest to chest, and the fertile raised his hand, pressing the palm to Jensen’s cheek, thumb stroking the edge of his lips. “You don’t have to worry.”

“I _do.”_

“You don’t. I came back. I survived.”

Jensen shook his head, lifting his own hand to cover Jared’s.

“It’s not about that. I will always worry for you, just as you worry for me. You and I...we are mates. Equals and partners. Just as I know that I draw my strength from you, I know that I must be strong in turn, so that you can draw your strength from me.”

“Hmm,” Jared purred, leaning in for a brief kiss. “Very romantic...”

“I do what I can to please you, mine,” Jensen replied with a small quirk of his lips, until Jared kissed it flat again. He turned slightly more serious. “And...it’s hard. To turn that off after what happened. I thought I was going to have to give you up for dead...”

“I know,” Jared replied, his own expression more somber now. “I know, and I hate that you had to go through that... You and the kids. And me. It’s over but...I also know it’s not. It’s part of us.”

Jensen frowned at that, feeling a flare of pain -- he hated the idea that this couldn’t just vanish, couldn’t just go away and never bother his mate again. He hated the idea that Jared would have to continue to deal with this. But his fertile must have seen the expression on his face, because he immediately hushed him, shaking his head as he did so.

“No, no... Not like that. It was hard, and awful, and I’m not going to pretend it was anything but. Even so, though, it’s not something that hurts. Not now, anyways. It’s--... I guess it’s just made me realize a lot of things.”

“Yeah?” Jensen asked, brow furrowing, curiosity blooming in him. “Like what?”

“Like this,” Jared replied, his thumb resuming his stroking. “Us.”

Confusion mixed with his curiosity, not liking the idea of any of this having to do with him, anything to do with _them._ He didn’t want it between them. He opened his mouth to respond, but before he could Jared cut him off again.

“I need you to know--” He swallowed, drawing back just the slightest amount. “That their alpha, Gedeon, tried to mount me--”

He didn’t get much further than that. Jensen’s hands came up, grasping Jared’s arms, not too hard, not to hurt, but too worried to not hold his mate, to not have him under his hands.

“He-- But you said--!”

“I know, I know,” Jared gentled, tried to calm him as they sat up, putting slender fingers against Jensen’s chest. “And what I said was true. He _tried,_ Jensen. He didn’t succeed.” Jared paused, but his eyes didn’t flick away. There was no embarrassment or horror, no shame when he said: “I killed him for his presumption.”

The news surprised Jensen, but didn’t shock him. He wasn’t scared of Jared, only scared for him, only scared of what such a thing might have done to his mate -- so sensitive and tender. One hand came up, brushing knuckles over Jared’s face.

“Why didn’t you tell me...? Are you...?”

“Because I didn’t want to talk about it there, with a bunch of humans watching... And like I said before, I _will_ tell you everything that happened, I swear.”

“But this-- Us-- What we just did--”

Jared shook his head.

“I’m not traumatized, Jensen,” he said. “I... I know that I probably should be, but I’m not. What he did...that’s on _him._ Not on me. And what I did? He deserved. I knew that the moment he did it, and I haven’t regretted it since. Not once. He has nothing to do with us. He _never_ will.”

Jared’s eyes didn’t defer or slink away, and Jensen saw no lie there, no falsehood or attempt to hide. He saw a fertile who would bend his neck to no one. He saw the same sweet saber he’d seen on that rock three years ago, looking up and knowing back then that Jared was in pain and bearing up under it, carrying his burden without asking for help and remaining good all the while. Jensen had been awed by his mate plenty of times since then, had it driven home over and over again that there was none like him in the world -- not because of his bloodline, but because he was a fertile more soft and loving than any he’d met, and a warrior as unyielding as any alpha. 

He was a _regna,_ beauty and dignity woven into his bones, and he’d been young, once, still just a cub in many ways, but what Jensen saw now was no lost cub, and no secret pain. He saw what he’d always known that Jared could be: a fertile coming into his own, becoming every bit the beautiful saber he’d always been intended to be.

“God,” Jensen got out, leaning in to press their lips together tenderly, hoping he could communicate even a tenth of the love he felt in that moment. Jared allowed it, brief and sweet, before breaking away.

“I told you this because,” he started. “Because I understand now. I didn’t, before, but--”

“Jared?” Jensen asked, his brow furrowed and his mate making little sense.

“Us. You and me.”

Jensen balked, not wanting him, them, _their_ mateship associated with this in any way, especially after what Jared had just said, but the fertile continued.

“The night on the river bank-- The first time--” Jared flushed a little, and Jensen was glad to see that. More in control as he was, Jensen still loved the look of red flush over the bridge of his mate’s nose, loved the way his eyelids dipped almost shyly. “I thought-- I guess a part of me always thought that it was just...instinct. That you were there and I was in heat and it just...happened, you know?”

Jensen nodded, though he didn’t know. He never could. He was not fertile. For him, that night had been about presenting himself, parading himself, _proving_ that he could be a good mate and father, all with nothing but hope that Jared would accept him.

“I mean, I love you. I _love_ you. But the falling in love bit...that happened after. And I guess a part of me always wondered if I would have, if it weren’t for the fact that we’d already been together, already had kids on the way. Don’t get me wrong -- I was always _happy._ It was just... You know. I guess I wanted to know if I would have still fallen for you we’d just met on the street or something, if I hadn’t been in heat.”

Jared’s hand came up, pressing to Jensen’s jaw.

“Now?” he continued. “Now I know. A part of me already loved you, when I gave you my back. That night beside the river...I accepted you. _Took_ you. And I always had the ability to say no. I understand now -- I would have sooner ripped your throat out than let you mount me uninvited. And that--...that means it was real. It was _always_ real.”

Jensen was vaguely aware that being told that Jared would have killed him shouldn’t have been romantic. But only vaguely.

But as it was, all he could see was that the night he treasured, their first coupling, that both of them had had doubts over -- Jared doubting his choice in the matter and Jensen doubting whether he’d been chosen for _him_ or just because he could give what Jared needed -- was clean. Free.

That Jensen had been accepted by his mate on his own merits and nothing else. And it didn’t matter whether or not it _should_ have been romantic, because it was either way, and Jensen felt full with it.

“I chose you,” Jared finished simply, voice thick with affection and emotion. “I will _always_ choose you.”

Jensen seized him, dragged him down into a kiss, more desperation than sex, more intensity than affection, just the need to feel his mate’s body there with him, alive and safe and whole. That Jared had survived and come home to him -- and that Jared had chosen him. He’d always chosen him. No destiny, no uncertainty, no doubts.

Their love hadn’t been sparked by a mistake or an act of carnal need, need that could have been satiated by anyone.

Jensen had found Jared on a river bank and he’d won him. He’d been judged and found acceptable, and that meant the world to the alpha.

His back met the sheets again and Jared laid over him, long body, so slender and lovely, draped over his chest. His fertile seemed so unspeakably breakable, so unbelievably vulnerable, and yet as tempered as steel. He was a contradiction of opposites, and Jensen was torn between protecting him and worshiping him, knowing only one thing: he was honored to have such a fertile. To have such a mate.

When they began to calm, when that swell of emotion passed, their kiss broke and Jared pulled back, looking down at him with an almost sleepy smile, contentment so clear there, and Jensen brushed a hand back through his mate’s hair. It felt soft and familiar, a thick, shaggy mane that Jensen had always adored, and Jared leaned into the touch with a purr. It made Jensen’s heart pick up -- his mate so rarely allowed himself to purr, and the rumble soothed the alpha as his fertile tucked himself down, head under Jensen’s chin.

Jensen bundled him close without reservation.

And for awhile, the hollow howl of the wind outside and the warmth of their den around them, they just lay like that, silent and together after a separation too long stretched. Just lay together, Jensen soaking in the real, undeniable proof that he hadn’t lost the precious gift the gods had given him. He hadn’t failed. And that peace and the quiet was enough to lull him, all the way to the edge of sleep, before Jared spoke up again.

“There’s something else,” he started, and those words made the warmth a little harder to feel, worry pricking at Jensen’s heart. The words seemed foreboding, like the rumble of thunder in the distance.

“Yeah?” he asked, hand rubbing up and down Jared’s back, feeling the long stretch of unmarred skin and comforted by it.

“I’ve been thinking about a second litter--” At that, Jensen’s hand stilled. “--and I want to have one with you.”

“Jared--” Jensen replied, uncertainty there, not because he didn’t want it, but because making a life changing decision like this, right after a traumatic experience, didn’t seem like the best thing to do. And Jensen never wanted Jared to regret anything they did together -- he didn’t want him to regret their _children._

“I know,” the fertile answered, lifting his head quickly. He was still laying over Jensen’s chest, but now looking down at him, face only just visible in the moonlight. “I know what it seems like, but it’s not that. It’s not that I’m acting out from this, or that nearly dying makes me want to be irresponsible. It’s not that they wanted to have cubs with me and I see carrying yours as some kind of...fucked up protection. It’s not like that.”

“Then what is it...?” Jensen asked, brow furrowed. He wanted to agree of course. He wanted to say yes and give his mate what they both appeared to want, but Jensen wanted Jared more than he wanted more children, and he would rather have his mate content than making a decision like that for the wrong reason.

“I’m tired of _doubting,”_ Jared replied, voice firm and emphatic. “I’m so tired of wondering if I’m doing the right thing or the wrong thing and worrying about everything I do. I’m tired of living in doubt all the time. And you’re right, I’m not ready. Not now. Not next year. And...and maybe not the year after that. But I’m tired of holding myself back because I’m afraid and then being afraid that I’ve missed out. I’m tired of always being the lost one and I’m _terrified_ of looking back and realizing I always was.”

He reached up and put his hand against Jensen’s cheek and Jensen moved into the touch automatically, the brush of just slightly cool fingers against his skin.

“I want to have cubs with you,” Jared continued, softer this time. “I want to have them _on purpose_ this time and know what I’m doing. I want to be able to actually _enjoy_ my pregnancy and know what’s going on and not be flipping out all the time. I want these things and I want to stop...holding myself back from having them--”

Jensen lifted one hand, slinking it under Jared’s arm and pressing it to his fertile’s mouth, halting his speech.

“...I want that too,” the alpha said, soft in the silence of their den. His hand drew back just enough to brush back and forth over those thin lips, feeling their softness, still tender from their kisses. “I want it too, and I want you to feel ready for it. I’ll wait, Jared. However long you need. Whatever you need from me.”

He watched, feeling something loosen and break free in him, as the lips under his fingers spread slowly into a smile -- still young, still free, not destroyed or weakened by what had happened to him, but just more assured. More certain.

He moved his hand and indulged in one more kiss, warmth and joy in him to imagine their second litter: not next year, and maybe not the year after that. But soon enough, and Jensen was just glad to hold his saber in his arms again, when for a moment it had seemed like it would never happen again.

When Jared lay down next to him, curled up against him, Jensen thought he’d stay awake the whole night just watching him breathe. But the relief of having his mate home and safe, of knowing that things were going to be okay, was too much to fight against, and he was asleep before he was even aware of it, his mind free of worry for the first time in two months, and all was right with the world.

His rest was deep and dreamless and the best he’d had in so many weeks.

\-----

Jared woke in pre-dawn darkness, not with a start but with a breath, and the first thing he smelled was home.

Dark and warmth and blankets, the skin of his mate and the fur-covered blankets that smelled of their children -- and it was unmistakable. This was no hole in the woods, no lonely cold stretch of grass or the unfeeling beds of the CDC.

He breathed in and out steadily, feeling calm, feeling relaxed, and he smiled a little to himself when the conversation from last night came back to him. He drew absent patterns on Jensen’s skin with the tips of his fingers, watching it goosepimple under each pass as he thought about the possibility of their future children, the morning air colder and the fire downstairs probably down to embers by now. Jared saw his mate shiver absently, and Jared leaned in to press a brief kiss to Jensen’s shoulder before very carefully getting out of their nest of blankets.

He crouched to pull them up over Jensen’s shoulders, tucking him and the warmth securely in before doing to seek out clothes himself. He shivered automatically as the chill ran through him, the built up heat from their bed quickly dissipating from his skin, and he tugged on some thick sweat pants, though he didn’t bother with a shirt.

He wouldn’t be gone long.

He very slowly opened the hatch, going down a few steps before looking back over at where Jensen slept, older face lax in unconsciousness, and Jared felt warmed just by the sight. He was tempted to do something ridiculous, like blow a kiss, and had to remind himself that he _wasn’t_ a fifteen year old school girl as he descended the ladder the rest of the way, chuckling to himself as he lowered the hatch as silently as he could.

Downstairs, most of the pride was gathered, sleeping in piles and curled together against the incoming chill. Jared paused on the landing at the bottom of the stairs, looking over the railing, over the mass of tan and beige bodies, the grumbling rolls of snores coming up here and there, and Jared’s eyes crinkled when he spotted the distinctive coats of his own kids, curled in against Julie and mixed with her litter. He couldn’t see Misha, but he knew the captain often volunteered to take night patrols -- he was undoubtedly out with the other beta.

Jared carefully tip toed his way through the pride, apologizing softly when he accidentally nudged someone, seeing them blearily raise their head before putting it back down once the source of their disturbance was identified. He made it over to the front door and slipped through it, walking out onto the cold hard ground of the mountainside, shutting the door gently behind him.

Outside, the darkness of night was beginning to fade, the sky lightening just slightly, enough to see by.

He glanced over pride ground, the familiarity of it, glad to see it, though it still seemed a little surreal. The mountain that sloped down before him and the familiar path down to the trees was there, just as he’d left it, lined with cabins and a couple more being built. Somewhere beyond the trees was the river, the steady distant roar ever present, especially in the quiet. In an hour or two others would be rising, getting up to attend to their homes and their families, going hunting to stock for the winter, finishing up clearing the crop they’d produced this season and taking in whatever fish they’d caught in the nets down at the river over night. Life never stopped here. It had gone on while Jared was gone, but that didn’t mean it was the same.

He had felt the difference in the relief in their eyes when they’d looked at him yesterday, when he’d been welcomed home. His family had missed him -- and that was more than just his mate and children.

He stretched, lifting his long arms up into the air and arching his back, feeling the slight breeze against his bare skin as he flexed his fingers. His necklace thumped lightly against his chest, reminding him, always, that it was there.

He turned away from the mainhouse, bare feet moving over the smooth rock of the ground, worn from decades of pride use, and walked out towards the west, towards the ridge that lead to the mountains, to the Cove -- but more importantly, to the cliff side that he’d taken as his own. The place where he and Brandon had fought and made up, the place where he could watch the sky.

The woods were still dense, even in the depths of fall, the evergreens well present and mixed in amongst those that had lost their leaves, though there were significant patches in the canopy now. Jared moved over the thick blanket of pine needles, not painful to his feet and his hand occasionally brushing the bark of a tree. He climbed up the rise that lead to the ridge, a little more awkward to do as a human than as a cat, and walked out on to the mountainside.

A few more trees dotted the land in front of him and he walked through them, emerging out on to the open cliff side, the air currents stronger up here -- not high on the mountain, but high enough, and the river churned visible below him, one hundred yards down and two hundred away across the carpet of the forest. 

There’d be no tourists at this time of year, and none this early anyways. The river moved on, empty of boats or rafts and running endlessly east, out towards the horizon. Jared walked to the edge, to the bare patch of ground there, placing one ankle over the other before sitting down, so that his legs were crossed, and he put his hands on his knees, feeling the knobby bone beneath the cloth of his sweats.

Around him, the morning was quiet. Serene.

It was that hour between night and day, neither one nor the other, and the nocturnal animals were settling in to sleep while the diurnal ones were only just beginning to wake. The world was like a stage, barren of players and still, but buzzing with the potential energy -- the anticipation of a day to come. And Jared could feel it waiting.

Over two months ago, he’d thought he’d never be here again. He’d been trapped in a nightmare that he didn’t even know how he got into, and in an instant everything in his life had changed. He’d been settled, complacent here and happy, and so sure that he knew what the past was, what had happened. He knew, of course, that no one ever expected their world to change in an instant, but it that didn’t change how shocking it had been.

Shocking enough to make him give up, if only for an instant.

He glanced to the left just slightly, out towards the east, where the horizon was beginning to glow, the sun held back a caged animal, and Jared knew how it felt, knew what it meant to be caught and captured. Bound.

He shut his eyes.

The world was exactly the same as he’d left it, but he, somehow, was different. And it felt like it had been waiting for him.

The shifting necklace felt warm against his belly, and he smiled, thinking of his kids, his mate, asleep and safe and waiting for him. He didn’t want to be parted from them for long, not after so much time spent apart. Many things had changed for him in the last few months, but that never would. His family, his pride -- and his place in the world. It had always been there. He just hadn’t known what it was when he was looking at it.

Jared's head tipped back.

He breathed in deep, the spicy scent of the autumn, hedging in towards winter, the teasing hint of the changing seasons dancing in his senses. Beneath him, the world was tilting, turning, moving ever forward on its axis.

He let the breath run out of him, dropping his chin back down.

When he opened his eyes, the sun broke the horizon, and began to rise up into the heavens.

 


End file.
